Drivers with roaring engines are being hit with $250 tickets in Newport, Rhode Island thanks to new ‘noise cameras’ that detect vehicles exceeding the city’s decibel limit and automatically flag them for fines.
The technology, which is set to be expanded to numerous states across the US, is targeting cars and motorcycles that exceed noise laws with revving engines, blaring stereos, or modified muffler exhausts.
In late July, one such camera clocked a crimson Mustang GT at 85 decibels – two over the legal limit – and instantly issued a violation.
‘Folks have reached their boiling point,’ said Newport City Councilor David Carlin III, describing the frustration that drove the city to deploy the devices after years of complaints about roaring engines that rattle windows and ruin summer evenings.
The city’s high-tech solution to the problem is two new Dutch-made Sorama noise cameras, which are mounted on portable trailers and fitted with 64 microphones that pinpoint the exact source of a sound.
Linked to license plate reader technology, the system can identify a single offending vehicle in a crowded street.
Police Chief Ryan Duffy said handheld noise meters used in the past were ineffective because offenders were ‘mobile’ and often gone before officers could act.
‘It’s much more difficult when that party is mobile,’ Duffy said.
A trailer equipped with noise-monitoring technology is helping police keep at least part of Newport, Rhode Island quieter
The technology targets cars and motorcycles that shatter noise laws with revving engines, blaring stereos, or modified muffler exhausts
Newport’s first deployment was along Thames Street, a narrow one-way road lined with clapboard buildings that amplify sound.
On one recent evening, a pack of motorcycles and a Jeep with its stereo blasting pierced the calm night – exactly the kind of disruption Duffy says the cameras are designed to stop.
Local Realtor Caroline Richards, 54, says the change is long overdue. ‘We should be hearing crickets and nice summer sounds,’ she said to the Wall Street Journal.
‘I’m not for over-policing what people want to drive or do. But it’s just obnoxious. It just feels like it’s definitely gotten worse.’
Spreading far beyond Rhode Island, noise cameras are the newest wave in automated law enforcement and are already common across Europe.
They are now being rolled out across the US, including in Knoxville, Tennessee which will launch a new program later this year to hand out $50 fines to noisy motorists.
Albuquerque, New Mexico is also testing three cameras to combat drag racing, while Philadelphia has passed legislation to allow their use.
Hawaii is also planning 10 noise detectors across Oahu, while even the small town of Avoca, Iowa, is preparing to fine overly loud trucks.
Newport Police Captain Michael Naylor is seen demonstrating how the noise detection software works
The software is able to detect exactly what part of the vehicle is generating the excess noise
New York City leads the way with 10 cameras run in partnership with U.K.-based Intelligent Instruments.
Since 2021, the city has issued more than 2,500 tickets with fines starting at $800 and escalating to $2,500 for repeat offenders.
But actually getting people to pay the fines is another issue altogether. So far roughly $550,000 out of $2 million in fines has been collected.
‘The noise code is city law,’ said Rohit ‘Rit’ Aggarwala, the city’s environmental protection commissioner. ‘People have to figure out how to avoid violating.’
Opponents say the cameras unfairly target drivers of factory-made performance cars.
Harley rider James Alves, 56, received a warning despite never modifying his bike. ‘If I see a couple walking a dog on the sidewalk, I pull my clutch in,’ he said to WSJ. ‘It’s just another way to grab money.’
Dentist Pat Morganti, 63, was fined when his Corvette Z06 registered 84.3 decibels on his way to see a patient. ‘It’s got a pretty obnoxious engine, but that’s the way the car is made,’ he said.
New York insurance broker Anthony Aquilino was cited after his $315,000 Lamborghini Huracán hit 92 decibels.
The cameras work alongside a series of 64 microphones that measure the sound levels
Newport Police Captain Michael Naylor says the department receives frequent complaints about loud vehicles
He says he was driving 25 mph to a prostate cancer awareness event and the noise came when he braked for a pothole.
‘It’s either don’t drive the car in Manhattan, sell the car, or just keep getting noise-pollution tickets,’ he said after losing his appeal. ‘I can’t change the way the car sounds.’
Navy sailor Jonathon Zitt, 38, who imported his dream car, a 1994 Nissan Skyline GT-R from Japan, says his $250 ticket makes him think twice about retiring in Newport.
‘That’s not an option if I can’t drive my car,’ he said. ‘I worked my whole life to buy this.’
Some residents say they’ve already noticed an improvement, while police are considering whether to add warning signs of the cameras.
Duffy says past noise warning signs backfired, prompting some motorcyclists to deliberately rev their engines in defiance – a kind of ‘an acoustic middle finger,’ as one resident described it.
Newport has issued only a few dozen tickets so far, but the numbers are expected to rise fast.
‘I think when you have success with enforcement, you’ll be able to change the behavior,’ Duffy said.
For retirees like Bill Hogan, 73, who has lived in Newport for decades, the crackdown can’t come fast enough
‘Our friends live throughout all of Newport. The hue and cry is the same. Do something about the damn noise and the speed.’
