[noodlesUK]

Whilst I seriously doubt that this will be regularly or universally enforced, I think that gas powered gardening and construction equipment is incredibly loud and annoying, and that especially in built-up areas it's not really acceptable where good alternatives exist. Noise pollution is usually very avoidable, and it can be quite disruptive and sometimes damaging to health.

Further, where I live (in the UK), there needs to be a serious reckoning about modified cars and road noise. At least 5-10x daily people drive through the city centre near my home with cars modified with unbelievably loud pop and bang ECU tunes and exhaust noise (close to as loud as gunfire). This kind of deliberate noise pollution is exceptionally antisocial behaviour and should not be tolerated by society.

[throwway120385]

We have the same problem where I live in the US. When I get some free time I'm going to lobby our state congress to have the sale of them banned, because it's the only way to get people to stop installing them. There is a law against driving them but it's impossible to enforce because there's no means of measuring the sound and associating it with the vehicle quickly enough to enforce it.

I'd love to have an ALPR system that localizes the noise and snaps a picture of the plate and vehicle and sends them a ticket in the mail.

[pbmonster]

German police have a what amounts to a dyno mounted on a truck bed, and they pull over suspicious cars and sound check them while an officer goes through the gears on the dyno.

Failing that test is expensive, and you don't see your car again for a few weeks. They revoke your permission to operate the vehicle on public roads, so in addition to the fine, you face fees (towing, storage of car in evidence locker, towing your car to a shop after getting it back in order to make it street legal, then redoing the road-worthiness certification).

[mc32]

Some of the most annoying offenders are motorbikes who almost see it as an obligation to revv as annoyingly as possible every chance they get on residential neighborhoods.

It’s not all of them. Some ride responsibly but my god, some are extremely good at being the most annoying human beings on earth.

[davidbanham]

It’s a pretty solved problem. In NSW, Australia we have automated systems for heavy vehicle noise fines. (They could of course be used for regular vehicles as well, we just don’t)

For all vehicles the police can issue a defect notice to anything that seems too loud. The owner then has to present to an inspection station and prove that they’re compliant. If they don’t show up or don’t test as compliant their registration is voided and they’re fined. Of course, they can remove the modification before visiting the induction station then reinstall it afterwards, but that gets pretty time consuming pretty fast and people largely stay within the bounds of reason as a result. The system isn’t perfect but it works fine.

[pc86]

Noise enforcement is a normal thing in areas that want to enforce it. It happens exactly the same way speed enforcement happens, the officer has a device that measures it and can present that information in court if the other party disputes it.

The problem for both noise and speed enforcement is entirely a problem of will. Some jurisdictions simply don't care, or just do targeted enforcement to drive revenue but not actually change driving habits. Do any driving around the country and you'll see areas where people regularly drive 20mph over the speed limit and areas where people barely go 5 over.

[altairprime]

https://www.roadandtrack.com/news/a60583398/nyc-noise-camera...

NYC installed these. Turns out with a city noise limit of 76 and ticketing those in excess of 84dBa, that you’ll ticket certain street ‘legal’ cars whose noise levels can reach into the 90s (!) if driven improperly in-city. Always glad to see technology progressing; I hope it spreads elsewhere.

[potato3732842]

This is such a bad idea I don't know if you're serious, or if you're satirizing these kinds of people or an accelerationist looking to burn down the credibility of your state legislature.

The right thing to do is to ban their use on a local level pursuant to some specific criteria is one thing (as many municipalities do, and Portland took a step further by doing categorically city wide). To ban their sale (but not use, are you kidding?) state wide is a great example of not only crap law, but the exact sort of minutia that the state level government should not be regulating and is necessarily proceeded by the sort of evil "I know best, damn the exceptions" world view that underpins much of the bad policy that sours people on the same institutions you are trying to use to solve what you perceive to be problems.

[cmxch]

I’d love to see it get smacked down in the courts.

[arandomsapien]

> there needs to be a serious reckoning about modified cars and road noise. At least 5-10x daily people drive through the city centre near my home with cars modified with unbelievably loud pop and bang ECU tunes and exhaust noise

I live in Portland and we have the same issue all over the city. They are much louder and more frequent than gas power leaf blowers. There are supposedly laws against them, but they are not enforced.

[SirFatty]

"I think that gas powered gardening and construction equipment is incredibly loud and annoying,"

Hence the ban.

[cainxinth]

There is another issue. The 2-stroke gas engines in backpack leaf blowers emit very toxic exhaust. Much worse than a 4-stroke. The landscapers are breathing that in all day.

[boringg]

What I find interesting about this ban: probably mostly makes sense in the for city for low workloads however the electric blowers (even the good ones that I am sure the city isn't paying for) are underpowered for real work leaf workloads. They operate as a midlevel gas powered blower.

As someone who is on board with electrify as much as possible - I still see where there are limitations and chokepoints.

Though for noise pollution makes a lot of sense.

[bryanlarsen]

They shouldn't be underpowered. Small electric motors are way more powerful per mass/volume than small gas motors. You'd have to use a backpack mounted battery pack, but contractors are already doing that.

[quickthrowman]

Leaf blowers with EC motors and backpack battery packs perform just as well as the gas versions.

[phoronixrly]

The notion of leafblowing is also mindboggling to me... You don't need a leafblower to clean up your driveway, and leaves on a lawn will turn into soil.

[soco]

My neighbour has a golf court style yard and constantly provides friendly suggestions how to better take care of my yard - with fruit trees and wild flowers. There are no mechanisms he could force his views around here, but boy would he love that.

[BoneShard]

More likely leaves on a lawn will destroy it and will create a dirt patch, at least this is what happens in PNW (Seattle & Portland). I have giant maple trees next to my house and I get 2 feet of leaves in my backyard every fall, if you don't remove them you get a breeding ground for rodents, you get mold and dirt everywhere (and clogged gutters, clogged street drains) and standing water. And it's not only leaves, I'm getting fir/cedar needles and maple seeds on my drive way, good luck removing it without a blower.