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COLUMN: Loud mufflers shattering peace is 'exhausting'

Columnist says he, like many, is 'sick and tired of the constant noise being belched out' by 'rip-roaring' young males driving cars with modified mufflers
2020-07-12 Loud muffler

My happy place this summer has found me relaxing in my backyard hammock, bees buzzing just below my head on the small yellow flowers that cover the yard, finches chirping above me on our bird feeders.

Bliss.

But it usually doesn’t last for long.

“Braaaaaaaaap!”

Yes, that’s right. The call of the car-bro.

Usually younger males rip-roaring around residential streets with modified exhaust pipes making their little Mazdas sound like thousand-horsepower drag racers.

Am I getting old? Maybe I just don’t get it.

I’m sure most people have noticed the loud revving of a car engine along with the roar of its tinkered exhaust pipe while passing under the Highway 400 bridge on Mapleview Drive on any given day or night. I always find myself muttering under my breath, “what are you, 12?”

Is it an alpha-male thing? Do the “chicks” actually get impressed by it? I highly doubt it.

When I was a kid, I used to fasten a hockey card to my pedal-bike wheel so that each thin wire spoke hit the end of the paper card. The faster you pedaled the more you sounded like a motorcycle. Well, in our young ears we did.

I sometimes wonder how many million-dollar Wayne Gretzky rookie cards were destroyed in this manner.

To me, these simple cars with a large bark are the 21st century version of those 1970s bikes.

Thankfully, there is an effort now underway to curtail this outbreak of noisy racket.

Barrie police recently laid 29 noise-related charges against drivers during a single-day blitz in July.

It’s doubtful that these blitzes will have any real impact due to the number of these cars around on the road and the limited effort that police can put into it due to budget restrictions and/or time constraints.

The law is a little ambiguous as well when it comes to noise. It basically states that a vehicle cannot produce any unnecessary noise.

There is also talk of just penalizing those that modify their exhausts to produce loud noise.

But what do you do about muscle cars produced in recent years that have factory installed pipes with fake exhaust noise which can be changed and are as loud as the modified cars? Such as many of the newest Ford Mustangs available on the market.

And don’t get me started on Harley-Davidson motorcycles. They are the worst of the bunch.

How can the laws be properly enforced when there is so much muddled language and applying it is almost entirely subjective? A police officer on the side of the road saying that it’s too loud and a driver that says it isn’t just creates more problems for the courts that may end up having to settle these issues instead of focusing on larger cases that are already backlogged.

I may sound like the cartoon character Grandpa Simpson yelling and shaking my fist at the cloud, but I’m sure the vast majority of Barrie residents are sick and tired of the constant noise being belched out, interrupting any kind of serene lifestyle that they hope to have within city boundaries.

There is already more than enough disruptions when living in a city that affect many people, such as those who work nights and need sleep during the day, which I can imagine is a struggle to begin with.

I’m thankful that city council and the police have begun to take steps to curb the noise, but much more will need to be done, along with the clarifications and discretion that will be needed to effectively enforce the law.


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About the Author: Kevin Lamb

Kevin Lamb picked up a camera in 2000 and by 2005 was freelancing for the Barrie Examiner newspaper until its closure in 2017. He is an award-winning photojournalist, with his work having been seen in many news outlets across Canada and internationally
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