Charleston, SC Noise Ordinances: Vehicle Noise (2026)

Section 21-16 opens Article II of Chapter 21 (Offenses) with council's finding that excessive noise is a hazard to public health, welfare, and quality of life, and it is not limited to vehicles: subsection (b) bans clamorous singing, yelling, and other loud gatherings citywide, day or night. Subsection (c) then targets vehicle noise specifically, prohibiting anyone from riding, driving, propelling, or otherwise operating a motorized vehicle in a manner that emits loud and unnecessary or long continued noise disturbing the peace, whether in the public street or on private property, or within enclosures public or private.

The subsection expressly folds in engine revving, rapid throttle advancing of an internal combustion engine that increases engine noise, as a form of prohibited noise. Subsection (d) defines 'motorized vehicle' broadly to include cars, trucks, vans, buses, motorcycles, motor scooters, motorized skateboards, mopeds, and low speed neighborhood electric vehicles, so the rule reaches beyond ordinary passenger cars. A safety carve-out in subsection (e) protects horn use for notifying passengers or as a safety precaution. The same chapter separately bans sirens, exhaust whistles, and motor compression whistles or bells on motor vehicles outright under § 19-385, a different, older provision in the traffic chapter rather than the noise chapter.

if audible from a public street. The noise findings and prohibitions in § 21-16 trace to the 1975 Code §§ 36-1 and 36-3 and were most recently amended by Ordinance No. 2011-44 in June 2011.