I hate loud cars. To me, the only thing more disturbing than hearing a loud, booming car drive by is smelling someone smoking in a car followed by them throwing the cigarette out the window. (This would likely cause a brush fire or forest fire out west.) I only wish they would have included something about those annoying modified mufflers that make cars sound like a powerful sports car (when the cars themselves are actually quite cheesy and nothing to be proud of).
Anyway, the Orlando Sentinel is reporting that Florida now has one of the toughest loud car ordinances in the country. In fact, the law says that anyone who is playing a car stereo loud enough so that it can be heard within 25 feet can be cited by the ordinance. As a person who hates loud cars with a passion, I applaud our law. I wish it would go further since, to me, loud cars are an invasion of my privacy. Thus, I wish we could prosecute drivers of loud cars with trespassing. But oh well, at least we've made one step.
Since links to the Orlando Sentinel typically don't remain active for very long, here are the key bits from the article:
Armed with a tougher law, police are cracking down on Florida drivers who cruise the streets with their stereos blaring. The stepped-up enforcement began this summer after the Legislature tightened an anti-noise statute to make it among the strictest in the nation. Motorists playing a car radio or stereo loud enough to be plainly heard from 25 feet away could wind up with a $70 ticket. The old buffer zone was 100 feet.
The crackdown is sweet music to the ears of many Floridians, who routinely bombard law-enforcement agencies with complaints about so-called "boom cars." "We have people complaining that they can't hear their own TV sets when some of these vehicles go by," said Warren Van Vuren, spokesman for the Titusville Police Department, which just this month launched "Operation Silent Night" to crack down on drivers who blatantly defy the law.
The new law has led to an increasing number of noise-violation tickets in Central Florida and throughout the state. For example, the Orlando Police Department has written nearly twice as many tickets since the law took effect July 1 -- 96 -- as it did the first half of the year: 50. The pattern is similar in Osceola County, where deputies have issued 89 citations since July 1, compared with 39 from January to June. In Seminole County, the number of citations from the Sheriff's Office went from 33 the first half of the year to 65 since July 1. And in Brevard, tickets by the Sheriff's Office went from 85 to 107 in the same period. Statewide, 6,896 people were ticketed during the first half of this year. From July 1 to Dec. 14, at least 8,304 people were cited, said Frank Penela, spokesman for the state Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles.
I think the police should enforce this law much more than they are currently doing, since I haven't noticed a decrease in the number of times I see and hear a punk driving around with a loud stereo. It's just not right.