Everyone has experienced those moments. You’re stuck in traffic, listening to your own car’s sound system and your favorite song comes on. Your lips start to curl ever so slightly at the thought of the rhythm pulsing through the speakers mounted onto your doors. The lyrics start to drift through as if a choir of angles had parked itself in your back seat. Then, all you here is BOOM-CHICKA-BOOM-BOOM from the car next to you. Ah, driving in the Good Life City.
However, City Commissioner Roger Marietta reveals that Albany Police Chief John Proctor has told his officers to actually enforce the almost 20 year old sound ordinance…and they’re doing it. I, for one, am glad to hear it.
Now, some of you may be confused. “Tom,” you’re asking, “aren’t you a Libertarian? Live and let live and all that?”
Yes, I am a Libertarian, and a proud one at that. However, these car stereo systems violate, in my opinion, what is called the Punch Principle. Basically, your right to throw a punch ends at my face. Well, your right to blast your ear drums with decibels reaching that of a F/A-18 Super Hornet is your own right…until those decibels reach my ears. At that point, you’ve violated the Punch Principle and my right to choose what I get to hear. If I get in your car, I forfeit that right. But in my own car? I don’t think so.
Loud car stereos have not only drowned out my favorite songs, but they have even caused me to wake up in the middle of the night because of neighbors just having to listen to Sweet Home Alabama at 3:00 AM. And yes, this was out of their car stereo for some insane reason. This caused an adverse performance in my job the next day. Which, let’s face it, is hardly surprising. Again, this illustrates another violation of that same Punch Principle. I’m being cause harm, and hence your right is violating my right.
What is sad is how Chief Proctor seem to be the first Police Chief in my memory to actually enforce the law. I remember when it was enacted, and realized that it would reduce the rattle of our windows when cars drove by pulsing with so much bass that I’m not completely sure they weren’t propelled by that very same bass. But it continued, because the police didn’t enforce the law.
Here’s the thing. Let’s say you disagree with me about the sound ordinance. That’s fine. But surely you agree that the police department should enforce the laws, and not just make up their own “law” by picking and choosing what to enforce, correct? Chief Proctor seems to understand this pretty well, and isn’t pulling the punches.
I said before that he’s talking the talk. Now, he’s making steps that look a good bit like he’s walking the walk.
Tom,
I don’t know why you find it hard to believe that Sweet Home Alabama would be blasting out of the sterio at 3am. The first three words in the song are, “Turn it up.” Geeez
I am please to say that the Sylvester P.D. and city council are addressing this matter seriously as well as those ATVs making noise on the streets of my subdivision. It’s just like that classic Andy Griffin Show when Barney said, “you need to nip it in the bud” because folks get the idea that certain activities are tolerated by the citizens and authorities in certain areas. (I will leave that at that.)
I think loud cars could be part of a smooth breaking and entering crime because you can’t hear a window smash over the boom bass. Since I can sleep well at night, I am constantly listening for unusual noise in the community but big bass cloaks the sound of crime. We had boom in our college cars but turned it down at appropriate times. These kuckleheads today simply don’t have proper home training.
slyram’s last blog post..Disney Princess and Black Royalty
Tom: You went there. My crew at Albany Junior College and ASU use to pump the Gold & Platinum tape by Lynyrd Skynyrd in my V.W. Rabbit as much as Kool and the G4ang—chilling at the tennis court next to the train in Sylvester while the white guys had the Dairy Queen parking lot full. The above mentioned kuckleheads need to hear Simple Man (forget your lust for the rich man’s gold, all that you need is in your soul), Gimme Three Steps (don’t get shot at the club) and That Smell (just say no to drugs).
Let’s get an Stimulus grant to teach life skills to the youth based on Gold & Platinum. And for the cats who won’t turn down the music, I hope I sit on your jury one day—you don’t play nasty music when old ladies are visiting in their front yards.
slyram’s last blog post..Disney Princess and Black Royalty
OK Bill, point taken
Slyram: That’s actually a good point. If it’s loud enough, it can be difficult to hear from nearby homes the sounds of a breaking and entering crime. How hard? I honestly have no idea, but I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that this was the MO for some burglars.