A local motorcycle enthusiast says there are plenty of laws that would enable enforcement of excessive noise from motorcycles. Law enforcement officials say they do not have the equipment and means to enforce them.
By Troy Dove / Special to the Malibu Times
A recently published story in The Malibu Times pertaining to excessive motorcycle noise within Malibu and the efforts of the Motorcycle Noise Committee to draft a city ordinance to help combat this problem has raised some concerns from a motorcycle enthusiast.
Since there is currently no easily enforceable law pertaining to how loud motorcycle exhausts can be, the Motorcycle Noise Committee, headed by Malibu resident Dennis Torres, is attempting to draft an ordinance that will target behavior associated with excessive motorcycle noise, such as revving an engine, and not necessarily the noise it produces.
Committee members believe that this law, modeled after one in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. and Portland, Maine may be easier to enforce than a decibel level law since it requires no equipment.
Mike Osborn, lifelong motorcyclist and political activist, said he believes there are already numerous provisions in the vehicle code that can be used to help curb the problem of excessively loud motorcycles in Malibu without the need for the committee to draft an ordinance.
“I’ve dealt with motorcycle legislation for many, many years,” Osborn said. “To say there’s no laws governing motorcycle exhaust is absolutely wrong. If there is a problem with noise, there are many laws on the books that cover it, extensive laws. The problem is that the Sheriff’s Department either doesn’t understand or won’t enforce the laws.”
Osborn said that existing motor vehicle code provisions such as 27150, which pertains to excessively loud mufflers on motor vehicles in general, or provision 27151, which makes it illegal to modify a muffler to increase the noise it produces, pertain to all vehicles including motorcycles.
“That’s what we’ve been using for motorcycles,” Traffic Sgt. Phil Brooks of the Lost Hills Sheriff’s Department and Motorcycle Noise Committee member said of the codes Osborn described.
And, Sections 27201 and 27202 of the vehicle code lists specific decibel levels, which motorcycles must adhere to upon manufacture, Brooks added.
“But once it leaves the shop, the vehicle code doesn’t describe how to test for it,” he said. “With vehicles it talks about how to measure it on the road, but with motorcycles it doesn’t.”
“If you have a motor vehicle that’s too loud and it’s taken to the referee station they have a procedure where they set it [decibel meter] up, so many feet at away, an angle and they take a decibel reading,” Brooks said. “Motorcycles are specifically excluded from that exhaust standard.”
Leland Tang, information officer for the West Valley California Highway Patrol, said the Bureau of Automotive Repair stated that the meters currently used to measure decibel levels in motor vehicle exhaust systems cannot be used to measure motorcycle exhaust systems.
While there are legal decibel limits presented in the vehicle code for motorcycles specifically, there is currently no means by which to enforce them Tang said. The department doesn’t have the means by which to purchase and maintain the equipment.
As to how to deal with excessive motorcycle noise, Brooks said, “It’s open to the officer’s interpretation, with experience and training, as to what is too loud.”
Brooks said all officers are trained using the same compliant and non-compliant exhaust systems so that all officers will have the same basis for making judgments as to what is too loud and what is acceptable.
“Motorcycles are inherently loud,” Brooks said, “so it takes training to determine what is way too loud and what is just loud.”
Tang said the proposed method of enforcement by the Motorcycle Noise Committee has been effective in both Chatsworth and Van Nuys, but Malibu courts have yet to indicate how they wish to handle this type of provision.
When it comes down to curbing the motorcycle noise pollution in Malibu, Brooks said, “It all comes down to enforcement. You have to have the people there to enforce the laws.”
Malibu typically hires additional enforcement during the busy summer months. There are plans to add an additional car or motorcycle officer on weekends during the summer months to concentrate specifically on excessive noise.
Torres has his supporters in the community.
One, Malibu resident Ed Gillespie wrote to Dennis Torres in an e-mail, “Thank you for your efforts to solved this very real problem here in Malibu.”
He continues, “These visitors on their motorcycles, I’m sure, are not bad people and may not know to what extent their excessive noise affects the lives of the citizens and business owner in Malibu.”