[The following is a column I wrote 11 years ago, and I submit it again to my editor because there’s a new noise-monger in my ‘hood, and he’s raising my ire. He drives a motorcycle that operates at a noise level akin to a downhill 18-wheeler using a Jake brake. Operating a motor vehicle without a functional, factory-installed muffler, or intentionally creating excessive, unreasonable noise, is illegal. I consider this a flouting of the law by self-engrossed citizens and a dereliction of duty by law enforcement no matter where I’ve lived. Have you ever had one of these bellowing scofflaws come up on you on a freeway and pass you with such a wild, deep cry of a wild animal it scares the bejesus out of you? National highways are full of them.]
(Dateline 9-2-2015 Jefferson IA) Someone who lives down my street drives a honkin’ F150 (a half-ton Ford pickup truck) with no muffler. It is big and it sounds big, like a large, angry/hungry/horny beast from Dante’s seventh circle of Hell. It is impossible to ignore his coming down the road because his unmuffled engine interrupts conversation, hurts my ears, makes my heart race and — each time — pushes me straight into plotting a horrible fate for him and his unbridled steed.
Definitions of torture: something that causes agony or pain; infliction of pain to afford sadistic pleasure. So in my way of thinking, my neighbor’s loud pickup is a synonym for torture. He’s not saying “Hi” to me, he’s saying, “Ford u!”
All of you who drive around this quiet little town gunning your engines to make your modified mufflers sound like a juggernaut from Hades, get over yourselves. Do any of you mufflerless wonders believe you actually elicit admiration? Think again. There is no envy, wonder, Gee-what-a-cool-guy thought passing through our brains as you interfere with our lives.
The pickup trucks and hogs (Harley Davidson motorcycles; and cousins) seem to be the worst when altered. (This is an observation, not a documented fact.) The roar as they take off from a stop sign or tool up the hill from the river? It hurts my ears, it hurts my heart. Why would anyone hope to annoy everyone? And worse yet, why do they get away with it?
There is an ordinance in Iowa vehicular code 321.436 MUFFLERS, PREVENTION OF NOISE: “Every motor vehicle shall at all times be equipped with a muffler in good working order and in constant operation to prevent excessive or unusual noise and annoying smoke, and no person shall use a muffler cutout, bypass or similar device upon a motor vehicle on a highway.”
Is there a reason that law enforcement does not enforce this law?
Loud mufflers? They certainly toggle my anger response. In the scheme of things they’re not as bad as murder, rape, war. But they are a form of torture. Widespread. Indiscriminate. Scary if you’re the pedestrian in the crosswalk. And so unnecessary. According to a friend who has a quiet Harley, these vehicles do not come off the assembly line loud; they have to be modified in order to blow out eardrums. My husband and I had an F150 for a while; it did not sound like a formula car at the Indy 500. It hummed down the road like a gentleman. No matter how you fool yourselves, you who modify your mufflers or neglect to fix a holey muffler, you are not rugged individualists after the American ideal, you are copycats, impressing no one but each other. To the rest of the world that has to share the same space, you are bullies, forcing us to suffer as you grumble like a Cyclops along public rights of way.
