Margate, FL Noise Ordinances: Vehicle Noise (2026)

Margate's Noise Control Code is Article VIII of Chapter 33, and under Section 33-77 the Margate Police Department administers it as the city's noise control officers. For vehicles on the road, Section 33-83 says no person shall operate, or permit to be operated, a motor vehicle on a public right-of-way, at any time and under any condition of roadway grade, load, acceleration or deceleration, so as to generate a sound level above the limits in Florida Statutes Section 316.293(2). The city does not print its own decibel figure for road vehicles in that section.

It borrows the state limit and the state measurement procedures under Section 316.293(3), as set by the Department of Pollution Control of the State of Florida. The definition of motor vehicle in Section 33-76 is broad: passenger cars, trucks, truck-trailers, semitrailers, campers, motorcycles, minibikes, go-carts, amphibious craft on land, dune buggies and racing vehicles, meaning anything propelled by mechanical power. Section 33-76 also defines a muffler and a dynamic braking device, described as a device used primarily on trucks to convert the engine into an air compressor for braking without the wheel brakes, but the sections quoted here do not prohibit engine braking by name.

Work on vehicles is covered by Section 33-79(h): repairing, rebuilding, modifying or testing any motor vehicle, off-road vehicle or motorboat in or near a residential use district in a way that causes a noise disturbance, or that breaks the Table I limits in Section 33-82, is a violation. Section 33-84 provides that federal noise standards for licensed interstate motor carriers, once the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency establishes them, supersede the Section 33-83 limits for those carriers. Section 33-80 exempts emergency work, but ambulance and other emergency personnel still cannot make clearly unnecessary noise.