Rockingham County, VA Noise Ordinances: Vehicle Noise (2026)

Sec. 11-17(c) makes it unlawful for anyone operating a motor vehicle or motorcycle within the county to create unreasonably loud, disturbing or unnecessary noise. Subsection (d) then lists, non-exclusively, exactly what counts: a vehicle so out of repair that it grates, grinds or rattles; unnecessarily racing the motor while parked or moving; retarding a motorcycle's spark to cause loud, explosive noise; accelerating from a stop quickly enough to screech tires; and stopping hard enough to grind brakes or screech tires. Subsection (a) separately bars hauling loose materials that clatter together without reasonable effort to deaden the noise, and subsection (b) bars mounting a radio, loudspeaker, bell or similar device on a vehicle to broadcast advertising onto the highway, with a carve-out for duly authorized parades and roadside auction announcements limited to property being sold there.

Sec. 11-2 confines this whole chapter, including the noise rule, to the unincorporated county: it does not apply inside the corporate limits of Bridgewater, Broadway, Dayton, Elkton, Grottoes, Mount Crawford or Timberville, each of which enforces its own vehicle code, and it has no application inside the independent City of Harrisonburg. Sec. 2 by reference, so a driver can also be charged under state law for the same conduct, but the local ordinance stands on its own as the county's noise-specific standard for vehicles on county roads.