Noise-detection cameras under consideration to curb modified vehicle noise in Charlotte

CHARLOTTE — You can’t always see it, but you can hear it. Uptown residents are fed up with the loud noise coming from cars.

“It sounds like gunning motors, and it is constant,” Uptown resident Nathan Hoffman said.

Whether it is music or a modified muffler, the loud sounds keep people up and keep the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department busy.

“The problem is it just reverberates because the buildings kind of bounce off each other,” Hoffman said.

CMPD Lt. Michael Griffin says he hears the complaints and agrees this is a problem. CMPD officers are now listening for the excessive noise and ticketing violators.

“We are basically out there in our patrol cars listening, and as the cars go by, we listen for the loud noises,” Griffin said.

The issue has caught the attention of Charlotte City Council’s Public Safety Committee, and it is not just in Uptown.

“You hear that noise, and it is scary, aside from just being irritating,” Councilman Ed Driggs said.

Council members want to explore putting up noise cameras, which detect when cars are excessively loud. This technology isn’t currently legal in North Carolina, so it will take state action. But CMPD and neighbors say the cameras would help.

“Technology is always evolving, so anything we can use to help minimize that would be great,” Griffin said.

“It gets the word out to offenders that they can’t use our neighborhoods to promote their modified mufflers or whatever they may be,” Hoffman said.

The city says Knoxville and New York City currently have noise cameras, which can be programmed to eliminate certain sounds, including those that come from ambulances and dump trucks.

CMPD recently conducted Operation Safe and Sound specifically to address noise in Uptown. There were 61 citations issued, 16 for loud mufflers.

Currently, state law allows for video surveillance in areas where there is no reasonable expectation of privacy. CMPD says none of its video cameras record audio.

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