St. Albert RCMP will be cracking down on noisy vehicles this summer, and in extreme cases they plan to tow vehicles and seize licence plates.
RCMP announced in a May 9 press release that they are taking a new, “graduated” enforcement approach due to a growing number of complaints from the public.
A first offence may result in a warning or a ticket, whereas a second offence may end with a ticket or a “defect notice,” which requires drivers to fix their noisy cars and report back to police when the problem is resolved.
“Additional charges can be laid if an individual does not comply with the defect notice issued,” the release says. “The third offence can result in additional tickets, towing your vehicle, seizing the licensc plate and taking it off of the road until the issue is remedied.”
Most of the problems have been caused by cars that are intentionally modified to be louder, said Cpl Curtis Harsulla from St. Albert RCMP’s traffic services.
Laws and regulations around car noise modifications aren’t new, Harsulla said.
“But the leniency is definitely gone,” he said. “Our time is very valuable, and if we could spend it somewhere else, like preventing a traffic safety issue versus a noise issue, that'd be great.”
Police don’t need to know the exact decibel range of the noise a car is making to give tickets and lay charges, Harsulla said.
“Bylaws do speak to decibel noise issues; however, the Traffic Safety Act of Alberta does not,” he said. “Anything other than factory [noise level] that we deem is too loud, is too loud, and then the judge will either agree or disagree with this.”
It can cost anywhere from $700 to $1,500 to restore a vehicle back to its factory condition after making noise modifications, according to Brent Elaschuk, owner of St. Albert Tune-Up & Brake.
“It depends on what they’ve done – if they’ve just cut a muffler out or if they’ve replaced the whole exhaust system,” he said.
The most common modification he’s noticed is changing the muffler to a noisier, aftermarket muffler.
