Posted on 11/05/2002 7:34:37 AM PST by H8DEMS
(CNSNews.com) - A national organization devoted to fighting noise pollution has taken its battle to the streets, to combat loud exhaust systems installed in cars after they are sold.
Noise Free America spokesman Mark Huber says the manufacturers of hot rod mufflers are selling a product that is "lawlessly terrorizing" neighborhoods across America.
The Richmond, Va.-based group insists that noise pollution is a serious health hazard. It mentions hearing damage, sleep deprivation, aggression, chronic fatigue and high blood pressure as specific maladies stemming from our noisy world.
Noise Free America recently awarded Flowmaster, Inc., a manufacturer of high- performance, after-market mufflers and exhaust systems, with its Noisy Dozen award, an "honor" given to the nation's worst noise polluters.
According to Huber, Flowmaster was singled out for aggressively marketing products that bother people and are even illegal in some states. He said Flowmaster and other companies that distribute the noisy mufflers systems specifically boast about the "deep aggressive tone" or "deep throaty rumble" that their products produce.
A diverse cross-section of teens and twenty-somethings are installing the equipment that sells for thousands of dollars.
An article in Flowmaster's customer magazine, Power Press, acknowledges that there's a strong demand for loud exhaust systems: "Market surveys continually show...that many buyers purchase a Flowmaster system because of its unique and distinctive sound."
But Huber said he sees nothing desirable in Flowmaster's product line.
"For some reason, both fans of after-market exhausts and 'boom cars' seem to be obsessed with the lower frequency noises, which can disturb more people at a greater distance in all directions from their vehicle," he said. "Sounds of a lower pitch or frequency travel further and penetrate solids, such as windows and exterior walls of homes more easily than sounds of a higher pitch."
Illegal equipment
According to Huber, it is completely legal for manufacturers such as Flowmaster to market and sell their exhaust systems. However, he said, as soon as the car owner installs the equipment and hits the road, that car owner could be breaking the law.
Huber said approximately 40 states prohibit the modification of exhaust systems contrary to factory specifications. Virginia is one such state, he said.
Virginia's State Code (Sec. 46.2-1049) specifically states, "No person shall drive and no owner of a motor vehicle shall permit or allow the operation of any vehicle on a highway unless it is equipped with an exhaust system of a type installed as standard factory equipment, or comparable to that designed for use on the particular vehicle as standard factory equipment, in good working order and in constant operation to prevent excessive or unusual noise."
But he said local and state police are lax in their enforcement of the state code in cases where vehicles equipped with noisy after-market exhaust systems are clearly in violation of the law.
Contrary to Huber's observation, Virginia State Police spokesman Sergeant Morris said the law enforcement officers statewide are cracking down on illegally installed exhaust systems; it's just that some counties don't enforce the law as strictly as others, he said.
"Different people have different things that they go after, fortunately or unfortunately," Morris said. "They have some police officers in Chesterfield County who are sticklers for those mufflers."
He said Chesterfield County's local police force writes a lot of tickets for vehicles with noisy mufflers because the devices are not standard factory equipment, nor are they compatible with standard factory equipment, as state code mandates.
However, Morris said judges in Virginia's county court system often rule against officers who issued tickets for noise violations. "Some will convict, some won't," he said.
Assault on freedom
Huber believes that people who purchase noisy mufflers see them as "some sort of extension of their personality that they want to share with the whole world."
"That's where the line is crossed," he said. "That's where they take away my freedom and they rob quiet off of my property and out of my personal space."
Aside from being a threat to public safety and an assault on the quality of life, Huber believes the tailpipe rumblings also affect the property values of homes within earshot of the hot rods.
He pointed to studies showing that homes located near airports lose almost two percent of their property value per decibel level emitted by jumbo jets. Similarly, he said, owners of vehicles that produce "aggressive, muscle car sound" may decrease the value of homes.
Noise Free America takes a grassroots approach to noise pollution. It lobbies politicians, even supplying model legislation, to address what it perceives as a health problem.
Flowmaster defends its products
"We have been in the business for over 20 years - and not by advocating that people break the law," said a Flowmaster spokesman who refused to identify himself to CNSNews.com . "That's why we make off-road products and products for street and emission vehicles as well."
According to the Flowmaster spokesman, the company designs exhaust systems for "race cars" based on the good-faith assumption that they will be installed on track-based race cars - not open-road passenger vehicles.
However, he said, "People, when they buy their cars and trucks, are free to do whatever they want, to a point. They go beyond that, oftentimes, and get in trouble."
Well see you're wrong there. The fact has been that most aftermarket dealers already fell into the 95 db range. SEMA knew this, and with an idea of what the standard was with the products, pushed for a range that most dealers would already fall into, hence the 95 db range. The problem is that with 'noise nannys' not having a standard to go by, they were arresting private citizens at whim. Now with 95 db being the standard, they can shut their mouths, put up their ticket books, and leave good law abiding citizens alone
I don't know why you keep trying to drag SEMA into this. I never said anything about SEMA. I've got no gripe with people who drive legal. But there are too many who say "Fck the law. I'll do as I please, and fck you if you don't like it."
One obvious reason for SEMA to support SB1420 is to put some distance between themselves and these deliberate outlaws. If they don't, they're doomed. They can read the writing on the wall as well as anyone else. As violations become more and more flagrant, people are going to demand stronger enforcement. If they don't get it, they may start resorting to vigilantism.
And if you'd read the original article that's exactly what the Flowmaster rep was talking about. Those that refuse to stay under 95 db are on their own. And that's acceptable.
LOL!! I have to admit that's pretty funny. Look, the people that drive V8s drive them for a reason. Not everyone wants a whisper quiet Hamstermobile that takes 45 minutes and 30 miles to get to 90 mph. For those that do, great!! But it's not for me. 95 db is not loud at all
< Thank you! Occassionally I lose heart and begin to feel that the barbarians at the gate attacking us with noise, litter, graffitti, property crime and other obnoxious affronts to society are going to completely over whelm our culture.
Then I hear such blather from the likes of you and remember that you noise & destruction folks really are not smart enough to prevail over decent Americans. Thanks again for the encouraging reminder.
This thread has enbolden me to approach some of my neighbors about banding together to fight back.
I have spoken to five families and three of them are ready to join me in taking action. I am truly grateful for this thread. It has given me hope of regaining the use of my home. If banding together for self defense is vigilantism then we are now vigilanties. So be it.
Self defense against sound? How are you going to 'defend' yourself against that? Oh, that's right, you're the one that wants to kill his neighbors. Literally.
Look, we've already discussed the law here. Why don't you call someone to come out and test these guys. If they break the law by testing, then sue them. But don't attack a $24 billion dollar a year business because you don't like the low rumble of a good engine. Remember below 95 db, you can't do anything. Above 95 db? Get a lawyer
Trying yo make you look like a thug and a bully is a waste of time. Your own adolescent babble indicts you as such.
I think your days of terrorizing the sick and elderly may be drawing to a close. The more I look into this noise issue the more clearly I see that many people are, like my family, willing and ready to begin defending thier homes.
Apparently you have never been kept awake by them. Hmmm. Maybe that's because you are the one keeping OTHERS awake.
That's fine when you are driving around, but what about the loser across that street that comes blowing in at 2:00 a.m. and wakes up the neighborhood?
Some pinhead gets it wrong again-
- the real problem we have around here are those BOOM BOXES installed in cars that can RATTLE YOUR WINDOWS as they drive by!!!
All you've done is consistently call names without providing one shred of evidence except you and three out of five families in your neighborhood don't like the sound. I suggested what you could do legally and even admitted that if the noise was over 95 db that you should sue the cretin. But yet, you come back with more attacks.
You're sick and I truly do hope and pray everything goes alright with your family. But your ignorance of the law coupled with your amateurish adolescent attacks should make you realize that you need to quit screaming victim, thinking someone somewhere owes you something, and shut up
FWIW, I know several of the 'elderly' in these parts that are still involved on weekly, if not daily basis, in engine building and strip racing. I'm sorry you don't enjoy this, maybe it is a more of a regional thing as I suspect. But it is something I do enjoy and in the state of NC as long as it follows the law, there isn't a thing you or this pantywaist anti-noise Nancy boy can do about it!!
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