Dougherty County, GA Noise Ordinances: Vehicle Noise (2026)

Section 2-8-47(8) of Dougherty County's Noise Ordinance (Ordinance No. 25-041, adopted August 18, 2025) makes it unlawful, in unincorporated Dougherty County, to operate a motor vehicle, including cars, trucks, motorcycles, all-terrain vehicles, motor-driven cycles, and mopeds, in a manner that creates excessive noise. The section specifically calls out continuously riding such a vehicle past, around, or near an inhabited dwelling so as to disturb or unduly annoy the people living there. Because vehicle noise also falls within the article's residential decibel ceilings, a vehicle exhaust or stereo that pushes sound above fifty-five dB(A) at night or sixty dB(A) by day into a residential district can independently violate Section 2-8-47(9), and Section 2-8-47(10) lets that numeric standard control if the two provisions conflict.

Enforcement runs through code enforcement officers and Dougherty County Police Department or sheriff's office officers, who may use a calibrated sound level meter under Section 2-8-51 to document a reading, and Section 2-8-46(c) subjects any violation of the article to the county's general penalty in Section 2-1-8. The exceptions in Section 2-8-49 do not cover excessive vehicle noise generally, though they do exclude government vehicles on public business and lawful firearm discharge from the article altogether.