Barrow County, GA Noise from Specific Sources: Car Alarm Limits (2026)

Barrow County Code § 58-4(b)(1) is written broadly around any horn or signaling device on an automobile, motorcycle or other vehicle, which sweeps in a car alarm going off in a parking lot as well as a driver leaning on the horn. The section bars sounding the device except as a danger warning, bars creating any unreasonably loud or harsh sound through it, and separately bars sounding it for an unreasonable period of time, the exact language that reaches an alarm that keeps blaring after triggering.

It also requires that any signaling device be one operated by hand or electricity rather than, for instance, a horn or whistle run off engine exhaust, and it bars using the device merely because traffic is backed up. Because this sits inside the county's general noise section, the surrounding definitions apply: § 58-4(a) defines noise as anything plainly audible from 50 feet that would disrupt a reasonable person's peace, so an alarm system a neighbor can hear from across a driveway meets the threshold. Enforcement runs through § 58-4(e)(1), which the ordinance splits by scenario: if the violation looks like a moving traffic offense, the Barrow County Sheriff's Office handles it, including tracking a vehicle by tag search and citing it at a fixed location if the owner cannot be reached on the spot.

The county's separate alarm-systems ordinance at § 58-5 covers a different subject, burglar, robbery and fire alarms wired to the county 911 center, and its false-alarm fee schedule does not apply to a vehicle's own horn or anti-theft alarm.