Mountain View, CA Noise Ordinances: Vehicle Noise (2026)

Sec. 20 makes it unlawful to operate, drive or otherwise use any vehicle equipped with a sound amplifying device, or any other machine or device for the production or reproduction of sound, on a public street in Mountain View, if doing so causes sound to carry onto private property or to be heard by others using the public streets or thoroughfares. The section, adopted in 1960 and never rewritten, does not set a decibel meter test or a distance threshold; the trigger is simply that the sound reaches someone else on the street or on private property, which the police department applies to amplified car audio, loudspeakers mounted on vehicles and similar equipment.

It sits in Chapter 19's general vehicle-operation article alongside the city's ban on driving onto restricted freeways (Sec. 19) and its towing authority for vehicles blocking traffic (Sec. 21), and like those provisions it is enforced by Mountain View police officers on patrol rather than through a permit process. Because the chapter does not carve out an exception for engine-off or parked vehicles, running an amplified stereo from a stopped car on a public street can still violate the section if the sound carries as described.