Franklin County, NC Noise Ordinances: Vehicle Noise (2026)

Chapter 14, Article III of the Franklin County Code, the Noise Ordinance of Franklin County adopted under G.S. 153A-133, lists specific acts that constitute loud and disturbing noise in the unincorporated county. Section 14-58(b)(2) covers horns and signal devices: sounding a horn or signal device on an automobile, motorcycle, bus or other vehicle is a violation unless it functions as a danger signal or is required by law, and even a permitted signal becomes a violation if sounded for an unreasonable period of time. Section 14-58(b)(5) reaches the vehicle itself, prohibiting the use of any automobile, motorcycle or other vehicle so out of repair, or so loaded, that it creates loud grating, grinding, rattling or other noise, a provision that reaches straight-piped exhausts, dragging mufflers and overloaded trailers as much as it reaches horns.

Both clauses sit inside the general prohibition of section 14-58(a) against noise of a character, intensity and duration detrimental to health, safety or welfare, and neither is limited to nighttime hours the way the radio and television clause in (b)(3) is. The ordinance does not apply inside the corporate limits of Louisburg, Youngsville, Franklinton, Bunn or Centerville under section 14-57(b); those towns set their own vehicle-noise rules. A violation is a misdemeanor under section 14-56, chargeable as a Class III misdemeanor, and the two-household complaint standard of section 14-60 can establish that the noise was in fact unreasonable.

Emergency vehicles engaged in their proper function are exempt under section 14-59(2), and normal manufacturing noise, permitted construction, and properly muffled farm equipment are separately exempted rather than covered by this clause.