City Council approved an ordinance to combat excessively loud vehicles that residents and law enforcement say have become a growing nuisance on city streets, particularly in West Austin.
"Loud cars and motorcycles have been a citywide problem for years, with an increasing number of complaints along the [RM] 2222, [Loop] 360, and Mopac corridors," council member Marc Duchen wrote in his Feb. 27 newsletter. "The initiative targets only those vehicles that are significantly louder than others, not those operated by normal, everyday drivers."
What happened
Austin police will now be able to cite motorists whose cars or motorcycles are unreasonably loud after an initial warning is issued. The increased enforcement applies to vehicle noise that's 85 decibels or louder and that's being made "intentionally, knowingly, recklessly, or with criminal negligence." Violations are Class C misdemeanors punishable with fines up to $500.
The ordinance was promoted this year by Duchen, who said the policy came together after engagement with constituents who'd long been reporting on increasing disruptive noise and racing activity around their neighborhoods.
“This is a constant daily threat to our peace and safety, and a noise ordinance is written as a balanced, reasonable measure that empowers our officers to protect our community from clearly irresponsible conduct," District 10 resident Lisa Capps told council.
Zooming in
Residents have urged action on a policy city officials seemed generally comfortable with, although council members took time to revise the ordinance due to some worries about its unintended consequences.
Council member Mike Siegel previously said he didn't want the anti-noise ordinance to result in unnecessary criminalization of innocent Austin motorists. He brought an amendment limiting citations to only cases where drivers' knowledge or intent of a violation could be proved. He said that measure was needed as a guardrail against "arbitrary or unfair enforcement."
Siegel's proposal didn't pass, after city attorneys said his edit would make cases more difficult to prove. Duchen said the change appeared to take the teeth out of the original intent targeting disruptive motorists.
Instead, officials voted in favor of an amendment from council member José Velásquez requiring police to issue a first warning before ticketing. He said that change was also aimed at avoiding inadvertent harm to vulnerable Austinites, including immigrants.
Some neighbors worried the changes described by some council members as safeguards would hamper efforts that took months to reach the finish line.
“We did not come this far to hand out a free pass to drivers who treat our commuter roads like racetracks, and our homes and businesses like collateral damage," resident Marisa Lipscher said.
Quote of note
"We often have challenging decisions that we make when we’re balancing the needs of different civic interests up here. I’m not sure this is one of those times—unless we’re considering the needs of people who want to use our public roadways to race and drive recklessly, and use a combination of vehicle parts and behavior explicitly designed to make extremely loud noise, as equal to the needs of the community members who live there and work there and raise families and pay taxes and fund everything from those exact roadways to this exact council," Duchen said.
