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June 16, 2008

Salem neighbors making noise about loud motorcycles

Chris Cassidy

SALEM — There are days when Alicia Hart claims to endure the earsplitting rumble 50 times a day.

“You can hear them a half-mile in either direction,” said the Salem Common neighbor.

They ride in packs of five or six, revving their engines at stop lights and storming through the neighborhood with no regard for the peace-seeking residents who live there, she says.

“We’ll have guys racing around the Common at 2 in the morning, completely waking everyone up,” Hart said. “It’s an assault.”

So when Hart began canvassing the neighborhood with 100 fliers protesting the motorcycles and the excessive noise they produce, about a dozen neighbors started e-mailing her, agreeing that something should be done.

“It can be lovely in the backyard, and then, it can be absolutely deafening,” said Ann Sweeten, who lives near Bridge Street and hears the roar of motorcycles headed to the Salem-Beverly bridge. “You’re sitting out there, and you can’t even hear your conversation when they come by.”

Sweeten, a concert pianist, said the noise can interrupt a rehearsal session or even drown out a pleasant get-together with friends. “It’s just reached a head, and people, I think, have had enough,” she said.

So have some Salem neighborhood groups who are asking police to step in after fielding complaints from residents about excessive noise.

As a result, officers will soon start stepping up enforcement of laws intended to reduce noise.

Lt. Robert Preczewski, who heads the traffic division, said police won’t just be targeting motorcycles. They also plan to go after cars with loud stereos or broken mufflers.

Police will set up officers on weekend nights along certain streets, including Bridge and Webb streets and the Willows, listening for violators, Preczewski said. At first, officers will issue warnings and inform them of noise laws, but that could escalate to citations, which for loud mufflers carries a $50 fine.

“We don’t want to necessarily crack down on them,” Preczewski said. “We want them to fix their behavior first.”

State law requires that all vehicles, including motorcycles, contain mufflers to prevent unnecessary noise.

A city ordinance also prevents motorcycles, motorbikes and snowmobiles from creating “loud, unnecessary or unusual noise so as to disturb or interfere with the peace and quiet of other persons.” Fines can range from $50 to $200 for those who knowingly break the ordinance.

But how do you determine whether a motorcyle is loud?

Preczewski said one option is to use a police motorcycle, whose pipe operates slightly less than the state noise level. If the motorcycle in question is louder than the police one, it could be ruled excessive, Preczewski said.

Some violations will be obvious.

“If you can hear a motorcycle really loudly coming down the street from blocks away, they’re automatically in violation,” Preczewski said.

Dave Condon, a Salem motorcycle rider and a district manager from the Massachusetts Motorcycle Association, said courts have often dismissed tickets that were issued without using a sound meter to measure the exact noise level.

Condon says he supports police efforts to educate riders and fine the ones that continue to create a nuisance. But he also wonders if residents are blaming motorcyclists every time they hear a loud engine.

After a church in Lynnfield complained of bikers interrupting Sunday services, police and the MMA set up a targeted patrol area one Sunday morning. They issued 25 citations, but only one for a loud motorcycle, Condon said. The rest were for cars with blaring stereos or broken mufflers.

“Every loud noise the congregation heard (they thought) was a motorcycle,” Condon said. “There are motorcycles out there that are quieter than your car.”

Condon said the MMA encourages its members to ride responsibly and use common sense. Riding on a main road in the back-country of Maine is a lot different than riding in a congested city with homes stretching for miles, he said.

Some riders do change the factory pipes that come with their motorcycles for safety reasons, so they can be heard by other motorists on the road, Condon said. That’s not what the MMA recommends, he said.

At the same time, no city can be perfectly serene all the time, he said.

“I can’t expect this to be Rowley either,” Condon said. “There will be a certain amount of noise in a city environment.”

Staff writer Chris Cassidy can be reached at ccassidy@salemnews.com.

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