A mid-July crackdown on loud pipes saw Toronto only issuing a handful of tickets, police say.
The Canadian Press reports the July 15-19 downtown operation saw 95 tickets handed out, but almost all those tickets were for speeding. According to a traffic sergeant, police officers didn’t notice many excessively noisy vehicles, motorcycles or otherwise.
However, the city’s head of bylaw enforcement told CP that things are going to be changing, and soon. Rod Jones said the whole point of the mid-July operation was to raise awareness for upcoming bylaw changes, which take effect Oct. 1.
The new noise bylaw has wording directed towards motorcycles: “No person shall emit or cause or permit the emission of sound from a motorcycle, if the motorcycle emits any sound exceeding 92 dB(A) from the exhaust outlet as measured at 50 cm, while the motorcycle engine is at idle.”
Honking your horn, revving your engine and other noise-making activities are also restricted or banned. To enforce the law, the city is putting 24 bylaw officers on the job, and also looking at installing noise cameras, similar to what’s seen out west and now also in Europe.
Last year, CP says Toronto had 12,974 noise complaints in total and handed out 600 tickets to drivers for noise complaints.
“At idle ” ,so how is that going to work ? pretty sure i can’t hear a harley start up down town from my place, but i certainly can once they get rolling and are revving the crap out of it .
I’d take loud pipes over a loud car stereo any day.
Implementing the noise bylaw Oct. 1 will give police 6 months to practice on trucks and car stereos until riding season begins again.