Have you ever opened your window on a warm spring day to let the fresh air in, only for your eardrums to be pierced by a hacking, roaring sound? You peek out and notice it’s yet another car that is not equipped with a muffler, racing through the street.
This is the reality many Colorado residents are facing–consistent complaints about noisy streets have lawmakers proposing a new bill, The U.S. Sun states. This new law, if passed, would make it illegal for drivers to drive a car that doesn’t possess a muffler.
What is a muffler?
A muffler is a vehicle part that, well, muffles the sound of exhaust from a car’s internal combustion engine. It’s often located underneath the car, at the back, and can be easily visible without having to look under. They are also called “silencers,” since that’s what they are known for.
Apart from reducing the noise, a muffler “helps reduce back pressure, limiting the car’s functions and overall efficiency,” according to AutoProtoWay.com.
While mufflers are required, not all cars tend to have them. This has led Colorado lawmakers to crack down on the noise pollution by raising the fine from $500 to $1,000. But how bad is noise pollution really? Is it just an inconvenience?
How bad is noise pollution?
It’s not just about being woken up from a nap–noise pollution can “not only drive hearing loss, tinnitus, and hypersensitivity to sound, but can cause or exacerbate cardiovascular disease; type 2 diabetes,” among many other problems, Harvard Medicine Magazine writes.
But what is considered noise pollution?
According to National Geographic Education, it depends on the decibels.
This is the unit of measurement for sound, where leaves rustling is around 20 to 30 decibels, and a siren can be up to 140 decibels.
“Sounds that reach 85 decibels or higher can harm a person’s ears,” the outlet states. “Sound sources that exceed this threshold include familiar things, such as power lawn mowers (90 decibels), subway trains (90 to 115 decibels), and loud rock concerts (110 to 120 decibels).”
As for a car without a muffler, its decibel range depends on a lot of factors. For instance, how far away you are or how fast the car is driving. Not to mention, how hard someone is pressing on the throttle. An expert on a Quora post pointed out that a car without a muffler is around 50 to 90 decibels.
As for the legal decibel range for a muffler, it varies from state to state. It also depends on how fast you’re driving. So if you don’t know how loud your muffler is, it’s better to get it checked before you have to part with $1,000.
Internet culture is chaotic—but we’ll break it down for you in one daily email. Sign up for the Daily Dot’s web_crawlr newsletter here. You’ll get the best (and worst) of the internet straight into your inbox.
