Tuscaloosa, AL Noise from Specific Sources: Car Alarm Limits (2026)

, or sixty-five db(A) overnight, at a residential property line. Sec. 8-14 carves out several categories from that general rule, and subsection (e) covers 'any burglar alarm or security device,' a category that reaches a vehicle's factory or aftermarket alarm system as well as a house alarm. The exemption means a triggered car alarm is not automatically a decibel violation the way a stereo or party noise would be. ' Once a car alarm passes the fifteen-minute mark, it falls outside the exception and the vehicle's owner is exposed to enforcement under the article's general prohibitions.

The code defines 'device' broadly, in Sec. 8-12, as 'any mechanism which is intended to produce or which actually produces sound when operated or handled,' language that covers electronic vehicle alarms without needing a car-specific definition. 8 does not create a separate towing or impound remedy for an alarm left sounding; it relies on the same enforcement framework as the rest of the noise article. A person cited for letting a car alarm run past the fifteen-minute cutoff, or for repeatedly triggering one, is prosecuted like any other noise violation under the city's general penalty section.

Because the ordinance ties liability to the running time of the alarm rather than its decibel output, a responding officer does not need a decibel meter reading to establish a violation, only the elapsed time since activation.