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New York Is Now Using Cameras With Microphones To Ticket Loud Cars (roadandtrack.com) 144

Posted by BeauHD from the sounds-like-more-regulations dept.
If you live in New York and drive a loud car, you could receive a notice from the city's Department of Environmental Protection telling you your car is too loud. Not because a police officer caught your noisy car, but because a computer did. Road & Track reports: A photo of an official order from the New York City DEP was published to Facebook by a page called Lowered Congress on Monday, directed at a BMW M3 that may have been a bit too loud. The notice reads as follows: "I am writing to you because your vehicle has been identified as having a muffler that is not in compliance with Section 386 of the Vehicle and Traffic Law, which prohibits excessive noise from motor vehicles. Your vehicle was recorded by a camera that takes a pictures of the vehicle and the license plate. In addition, a sound meter records the decibel level as the vehicle approaches and passes the camera."

The order goes on to tell the owner to bring their car to a location specified by the DEP -- a sewage treatment plant, to be precise -- for inspection. Show up, and you'll have the opportunity to get the car fixed to avoid a fine -- much like California's "fix-it" ticket system. The document also informs the owner that if they fail to show up, they could face a maximum fine of $875, plus additional fines for continuing to ignore the summons.

A New York City DEP spokesman confirmed to Road & Track via email the system is part of a small pilot program that's been running since September 2021. From the description above, it sounds like it works much like a speed camera that automatically records a violation and sends it to you in the mail by reading your license plate. Instead of a speed gun, this new system uses a strategically placed sound meter to record decibel levels on the road, matching it to a license plate using a camera. [...] The program will be reevaluated on June 30, according to the DEP. From there it'll likely either be expanded or taken out of commission.
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New York Is Now Using Cameras With Microphones To Ticket Loud Cars More

New York Is Now Using Cameras With Microphones To Ticket Loud Cars

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  • Good (Score:5)

    by Ossifer ( 703813 ) on Wednesday February 16, 2022 @09:30PM (#62275161)

    So sick of people driving around with "anti-mufflers"

    • Yep. Agreed. Not that I live there, but as someone who can be heavy on the foot; I would rather have a car that made no noise but went 0-60mph in 3 seconds than a wannabe fake sportster with a bolt-on spoiler that goes 0-60mph in 15 seconds. It reminds me of the Jeff Foxworthy skit about throwing a shirt into the dryer to freshen it up. Warm = clean. Overcompensation.

    • But I say it is too little too late.
      At this point why bother investing in this technology, it is just going to piss off people who wanted loud cars, and probably not do too much to stop the activity, thus waking up and annoying residents.
      Also it is expected by 2030 a good portion of the auto traffic will be Electric. And the kids would equate the loud noise of an engine to the sound of slow construction equipment. The sound of tires on the road doing a doper effect would be the sound of speed, not the roar

      • > by 2030 a good portion of the auto traffic will be
        > Electric

        Sure, but there is already a pack of busybodies out there who think that electrics are "too quiet" and have been pushing (And, I think, succeeding in some jurisdictions.) for them to have mandatory artificial noisemakers* added. Also... the sort of person who drills his muffler to make his ICE car obnoxiously noisy will almost certainly, when he moves to electrics, work out some way to make the electric artificial and obnoxiously noisy.

        (*A

    • So sick of people driving around with "anti-mufflers"

      I own a WRX with a factory-option STI exhaust and I feel just plain conspicuous. I have NO clue how people drive with what we call f@%t cans and still have their hearing . . . maybe they don't?

      • Forget their hearing, what about their sanity? It would drive me batshit crazy to have to listen to it all the time.

        • My assumption was that to do it in the first place, their sanity was in question. It's like I tell people when they're practicing driving: if you see a bright green, Yellow or Orange car on the highway, try to keep a lane between you if possible and several cars; making good decisions clearly isn't their wheelhouse.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by ranton ( 36917 )

      Just as long as this applies to motorcycles too. I hate the stupidity of having laws regarding automobile noise and not having them applied to motorcycles. I have almost never heard a four wheel vehicle louder than your average motorcycle.

  • Nice (Score:3)

    by youngone ( 975102 ) on Wednesday February 16, 2022 @09:34PM (#62275169)
    That sounds good. I assume that if you think your car is not too loud, you can plead not guilty and argue it in front of a judge.
    As an aside, there is a fashion in parts of the city I live in where idiots have huge loudspeakers attached to the outside of their car, and they periodically blast loud music just for kicks.
    I'm not usually a proponent of corporal punishment, but I'd make an exception in that case.

    • Re:Nice (Score:5, Interesting)

      by thesupraman ( 179040 ) on Wednesday February 16, 2022 @10:10PM (#62275235)

      I wonder how they cope with the kid sitting next to it with a recording of a loud car, selecting victims...

      Oops

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by Corbets ( 169101 )

        Not really a problem aside from being a nuisance, as the summary states that there’s an inspection to prove the noise level. And one would assume that the “camera” part of the camera and decibel meter may catch said kid, or that a prevalence of such incidents would cause the police to investigate if foul play was occurring.

        In Switzerland, this is done manually; police pull you over and inspect things then and there, in addition to periodic mandatory car inspections. But I could see the tec

        • In Switzerland, this is done manually; police pull you over and inspect things then and there, in addition to periodic mandatory car inspections. But I could see the technology appearing there pretty quick too.

          Though given the jump in popularity in lots of our cities of EV, which are quieter, (and even more so, the shift to much more silent electric bikes in some cities), I doubt that "sound trap cameras" are going to have that much use long-term.

          • I'm guessing that you don't have many "petrol heads" around where you live then. Vehicles don't leave the factory that loud. I bet that at least 9 times out of ten, the owner has deliberately "tinkered" with it to make it insufferably loud. There seems to be an inverse correlation between the size of the vehicle & the loudness they make, i.e. "tinkered with" motorbikes & quad-bikes are usually much louder than buses & lorries. There is absolutely no excuse for this anti-social behaviour.

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by dave314159259 ( 1107469 )

          Not really a problem aside from being a nuisance, as the summary states that there’s an inspection to prove the noise level.

          I'm not sure where you're from, but around here having to take a day off from work or a day away from what you'd rather be doing, driving to a testing center that's nowhere near where you live, paying a confiscatory state-mandated fee for the test, and dealing with a test operator who doesn't care how long you have to wait doesn't qualify as "not really a problem" even when the result is "no problem found, void the ticket".

    • My city has an ordinance that you are not supposed to be able to hear it a certain number of feet from the vehicle. It prettymuch made the aftermarket car stereo businesses become rather anemic.

    • I assume that if you think your car is not too loud, you can plead not guilty and argue it in front of a judge.

      You absolutely can but what you are going to be arguing is that it doesn't exceed a certain number of decibels, which is what the microphone picked up. Considering the evidence, you would need to counter it some way. I see 0% chance of success if your car is in fact loud.

      As an aside, there is a fashion in parts of the city I live in where idiots have huge loudspeakers attached to the outside of their car, and they periodically blast loud music just for kicks.

      Something like this could also trigger the cameras.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by kmoser ( 1469707 )
        I wonder if they've accounted for the fact that two cars in close proximity might also trigger the sensors.

        • Your inquiry is fair. By using multiple microphones pointed in different directions, you can identify the source of a sound with some simple math. I presume any system designed for this purpose would have a DSP doing this in real time when any microphone is triggered. Also, it's a camera and the people who have audibly loud cars generally have visually loud cars as well.

  • About Fcking time (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jwhyche ( 6192 ) on Wednesday February 16, 2022 @09:35PM (#62275175) Homepage

    About time someone started doing this. Now if they would just do it around here. I know a truck worth at least $500.

    • Agreed. We so desperately need this in Oz too.

    • I think everyone will agree this is a good thing. Here in France we mostly have problems with loud motorbikes, scooters and mopeds, but since they are required by law to have a numberplate, this could help bring the noise down.

      To be most helpful this needs to be combined with a law that fines garages that do that kind of "noise tuning" on the bikes, and we need an import ban on noisy parts, since those vehicles are not intrinsically noisy, just go to Japan and you'll see the same bikes down the streets, zip

      • Harleys are big in France?

        • They sell about 10k bikes a year here (source - fr) [moto-station.com]. It's a smallish community, but with a lot of money and social status. Very different from the biker gangs of the US I guess, even though they share the same clothing style...

          • We have biker gangs here, but there are also regular clubs that just meet up and do rides through the backroads. The leather chaps and jackets are protective even though they do provide that Outlaw look. Some prominent CEOs and business owners are known to join these clubs. Very few ride honda gold wings, though they certainly exist. Usually its something like a Fatboy or a chopper with saddle bags. They dont even look right without it. If youre old enough to remember Bon Jovi, he had a song called Wanted:

        • Yes.

          France has assholes too.

  • Will cars with 10k Watt speakers get tickted? (Score:3)

    by iamnotx0r ( 7683968 ) on Wednesday February 16, 2022 @09:36PM (#62275177)
    Imagine, driving around with a loud muffler noise on the stereo.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by swilver ( 617741 )

      I suggest ticketing anything, car or not, that produces enough noise to form a nuisance.

    • HALF of the cost of my stereo system was an entire cabin sound deadening system.

      You can have a loud stereo without other people needing to hear it. It's like the ding-a-lings that leave there stereo on super-loud with all the windows down while refueling.

      I'm certain most of these guys get a $120 kit subwoofer and leave it on boost. (extra points for loosening the screws on the license plate too, right?)

  • Hopefully Motorcycles Are Included. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by zenlessyank ( 748553 ) on Wednesday February 16, 2022 @09:36PM (#62275179)

    Damn Harley's and those crotch rockets need to be removed from the universe.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Bigbutt ( 65939 )

      They can actually be ticketed even without the decibel meter. "Official" mufflers have a stamped "license" on the muffler. Any after market muffler, be it HD, Yoshi, or anyone else specifically states that the mufflers are not street legal. An enforcement officer can simply park outside any bar and have a field day ticketing HD bikes.

      I had a Harley in the past and I did ask for a Screaming Eagle I to replace the stock pipes on my Softail Classic. The dealer simply put on the Screaming Eagle II on the bike i

      • Re:Hopefully Motorcycles Are Included. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by NateFromMich ( 6359610 ) on Wednesday February 16, 2022 @10:30PM (#62275277)
        I would love if the police actually enforced any sort of noise law against Harley riders, but I doubt they ever will.

        • Re:Hopefully Motorcycles Are Included. (Score:4, Insightful)

          by hoofie ( 201045 ) <mickey&mouse,com> on Thursday February 17, 2022 @02:58AM (#62275623)

          I've never understood why some bikers worship something built like a 1930s tractor.

          Japanese Engineering excellence or beautiful but fragile Italian engineering - yes

          But a huge, heavy, fat lump of metal that hasn't evolved since WW2 ? I don't get it

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by suutar ( 1860506 )

            Durability has its own appeal. (Note - I don't know whether HD qualifies, but I figure that's the appeal for a lot of old cars...)

            • Huh? I have a couple of uncles who are into working on "Classic" American cars and a friend who buys, restores, and resells old BMWs as his hobby. I can see an aesthetic appeal on some examples of the former and a fun-to-drive appeal on all of the latter. And I can certainly understand the appeal from the hobbiest point of view of working on them for fun. But the key point there is "working on" and "restoring" them. Neither the Detroit metal that was always crap, nor the Bavarian autos that were good i

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by suutar ( 1860506 )

                Thank you! After reflecting on it I think I expressed myself badly; "durability" was poorly chosen. "Classic" maybe? or "Into that design aesthetic"? ("Fun to work on" is also, as you mention, a strong appeal, but I'm not sure it applies to most harley riders.)

          • Re:Hopefully Motorcycles Are Included. (Score:5, Informative)

            by ZiggyZiggyZig ( 5490070 ) on Thursday February 17, 2022 @05:27AM (#62275767)

            Actually the HD engines have evolved a fair bit to adapt to new pollution regulations.

            And the "distinctive sound" is actually engineered to "sound" the same as it was with the engines of the 50s, while following local regulations:

            Harley-Davidson participated in a series of sound quality studies at Orfield Labs, based on recordings taken at the Talladega Superspeedway, with the objective to lower the sound level for EU standards while analytically capturing the "Harley Sound".[citation needed] This research resulted in the bikes that were introduced in compliance with EU standards for 1998 (source) [wikipedia.org].

            They can make silent - or at least quieter - bikes if they want to, or at least if they are force-regulated into doing it.

            • Sure, by adding more muffler like everyone else. But the Harley sound is predicated upon a bike making less power than it could be, because of its valve timing. You literally can't make that noise from an engine and be as efficient as that engine could be with nothing but different valvetrain timing.

          • To them its like a horse.
        • Possibly because half the force either own one or are considering owning one.

      • Mufflers don't need to be special to be street legal, even in California. What's controlled here, in the most restrictive state in the nation when it comes to emissions equipment, is anything between the air filter and the last catalyst (or any sensors downstream of same.) Anything else in the intake/exhaust stream can be changed with relative impunity, except that you're not allowed to make it excessively loud.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gTsiros ( 205624 )

      my 1998 hornet _might_ backfire when under heavy deceleration, more likely during the summer.

      I am sorry for that, I can not do anything about it. It's an inherent characteristic of the engine :/

  • Finally! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by CmdrPorno ( 115048 ) on Wednesday February 16, 2022 @09:39PM (#62275183)

    Please also ticket motorcycles for noise violations, as well as the owners of cars which fail to use turn signals.

    • as well as the owners of cars which fail to use turn signals.

      My favorite is when I'm waiting for some guy to go by, and then he slows down and turns without a signal, making eye contact with me.
      I'm pretty sure he saw me there, waiting for him, but he couldn't be bothered to let me know he was turning.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by msauve ( 701917 )
      >cars which fail to use turn signals.

      ...or do use fog lights when it's not foggy, or there's oncoming traffic.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dargaud ( 518470 )
      Yes, sure there are some noisy cars, but the motorcycles are beyond anything. Particularly with their 'I can get away with it because it's a security feature' attitude. An experiment a while ago showed that a souped-up moped crossing Paris at 5am does wake up 150 000 people. If that doesn't deserve some harsh penalties, then what does ? I hope those sound radars make it everywhere, I know one will be installed right in front of my home soon. Can't be soon enough.
    • are the drivers that signal AFTER they have started to perform the turn.

  • Happy! Mustangs with selectable volume, suck it (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ThomasBHardy ( 827616 ) on Wednesday February 16, 2022 @09:40PM (#62275185)

    When I saw a while back that they were giving Mustang owners selectable volume, I knew we'd finally gone too far. Some numbuts making his car super loud on purpose is bad enough, he has to spend money to do it. But when they started adding it to production cars that you can tun up the volume jut for the sake of it?

    Screw that! Ticket them all, ticket them everywhere! no one needs to hear that tearing past their house or sitting in traffic and have it vibrating my mirrors.

    • When I saw a while back that they were giving Mustang owners selectable volume, I knew we'd finally gone too far.

      Valved exhausts are available for many cars.

      https://valvetronic.com/ [valvetronic.com]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ruddk ( 5153113 )

      That has been an option for the Corvette as well. One problem was that you could not change it to silent when it was not running. So if you had it just on regular and was leaving early in the morning and wanted to set it to silent, you couldn't do it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Some of the German manufacturers have fake engine sounds piped into the cabin in the fossil fuel cars, as well as in their EVs. I'm okay as long as it's just in the cabin.

    • Or you could think of it as an exhaust which can be made quieter, for use in neighborhoods.

      Eventually that sort of thing will probably be geofenced, you'll only be allowed to open it up in whitelisted areas.

  • Good (Score:5, Insightful)

    by forty-2 ( 145915 ) on Wednesday February 16, 2022 @09:45PM (#62275197)

    Bring it on - they could cover college tuition for every child in NYC if they were able to enforce this and extract their fines. I live in Northern Manhattan; I've been here 20 years, and this neighborhood has seen a measurable decline in quality of life since the pandemic. I'm pretty appreciable fraction of stimulus money & unemployment checks in this and surrounding neighborhoods has gone to buying cars, loud stereos, exhaust mods, dirt bikes, and ATVs. Spending $2,000 to make your $5,000 honda sound like a $1,500 honda seems to be all the rage around here (we get it, you're a male in your 20's with a 4 cylinder car). Drag-racing, donuts, mobs of unregistered ATVs.. it's fucking mad-max up in here, and aside from being a serious annoyance, when it gets out of hand it is a real, physical danger to others. Fine every last one of the scumbags. Confiscate their cars. Destroy them. Make them watch, I'll pay money to help. I'll pay more if they have to sit in the car while I do it.
    Unfortunately, these are the kinds of enforcement tactics that you need sometimes in more densely populated regions, and I hope it works. If it wasn't one of the most congested places on the planet, I'd call it gross overreach. If they tried to pull this shit 100 miles north of here, there would be well deserved backlash.

    • Very sorry to hear that.

      Haven't been to the city in a few years, but I'm told quality of life has diminished throughout due to pervasive lawlessness.

      That means greatly diminished tourism $$$ also. I for one have no intention of visiting with my family if I cannot keep them reasonably safe.

      If I were Eric Adams, fighting crime would be priority #1, because everything else, including fixing transit, poverty, unaffordable housing, homelessness, schools, etc., depends on this. People don't choose to ride subwa

  • In before... (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Just grabbing some popcorn and waiting for the "Loud exhaust noises keep me safe while riding my motorbike" people to enter chat.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by inflex ( 123318 )

      Likewise. I'm a motorcyclist (31 years now) and "loud exhausts save lives" is a load of BS for sure.

      Unless they 180' turn the exhaust pipes so that they're front-facing then there's no technical validity in the claim. If anything, chances are loud exhausts cause accidents because of the shock/rage they cause when the bike (or car) passes by creating a needless distraction.

    • Not a biker myself (at the moment), but I appreciate being able to hear bikes because they can maneuver into my car's blind spots very quickly and that might be my only warning that they are there. Granted, bikers quickly learn to avoid those blind spots when they can, but in dense environments like Manhattan that may not always be possible.

  • Great... (Score:3)

    by sconeu ( 64226 ) on Thursday February 17, 2022 @12:34AM (#62275463) Homepage Journal

    Now do something about those subwoofers that you can hear from 3 miles away.

    Dude, it's not showing how you're cool. Nobody wants to hear your tunes.

  • Teach those people whose cars only have 2 inches of clearance a lesson.
  • My understanding is that often, vehicles that are excessively noisy have after-market mufflers installed by the owners. The owners remove these, and reinstall the original mufflers when they have vehicle inspections, and put the after-market mufflers back on afterwards. If they're told to take their vehicle to be tested for excessive noise, they'll obviously just do the same thing.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by suutar ( 1860506 )

      At which point, after the same vehicle gets tagged a couple of times, they don't send the "come get inspected" mail, they send a cop with a sound meter.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by inflex ( 123318 )

      Most people who get their exhausts replaced toss out the original or sell off as parts. There'll be some who put real effort in to dodging the fines but after a few rounds they're going to be sufficiently sick of it.

  • I have an old Tesla that is "too quiet" for the NHTSA and doesn't make annoying noises at low speeds.

    Although with all the noise pollution, I'm not sure how they'd tell that my car is too quiet (This isn't just a Tesla issue, there are several cars that are too quiet at low speeds for the NHTSA and the National Federation of the Blind.

  • What about all those rich dudes on their Harley's... The ones who pride themselves in making them as loud as possible.

  • It mystifies me why some people purposefully have loud cars. Do they really think that others want to hear their car???

  • This is just a trick to get people to move to New York! I see what they're doing! You hate loud cars/hillbilly trucks/Harleys, move to NY!

  • Oklahoma, on the other hand, provides tax refunds for drivers who exceed 110 dB because "it's our god-given consternational right!", and taxes electric cars because they're quiet and sneaky. Or maybe I just made that up.

  • No more house music (stupid slashdot wouldn't let me type in a noise)
    Now this tech and law needs to be applied to the national park system. Nothing worse than having your idyllic campsite compromised by a bunch of Harley riders.

  • Does it catch those too?

    On of these can wake up people in a mile radius.

  • What's the point of enforcing it for cars when trucks are way louder? Same goes for motorcycles.
  • Ticket those suckers. I live 2.5 miles away from an interstate (out of visible range by far) and some nights I hear the trucks jake brake. Imagine how loud they have to be to be heard 2.5 miles away.

  • Can they ticket loud people too? Thanks.

  • Oh please let them also ticket harleys and other way to loud motorcycles.

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