Tuscaloosa, AL Noise Ordinances: Vehicle Noise (2026)

Section 10.8-15 of the Tuscaloosa City Code, titled "Noise on public streets generally," sets two independent tests for sound equipment inside a motor vehicle. Subsection (a) is a meter test: no one can lawfully use, operate, or permit the use of sound-amplifying equipment in a motor vehicle that produces sound exceeding seventy-five (75) db(A) on any public street or right-of-way in the corporate limits of the city or its police jurisdiction. Subsection (b) is an ear test: the same equipment must not be plainly audible at a distance of twenty-five (25) feet or more from the vehicle.

The section names radios, audio file players, compact disc players and cassette tape players, but the list opens with "including, but not limited to," so any machine or device that amplifies the human voice, music or other sound counts under the definition of sound-amplifying equipment in Sec. 10.8-12. Neither subsection contains a daytime or nighttime exception, and neither carries the 65 db(A) overnight figure found in the residential rule at Sec. 10.8-13.

Sec. 10.8-12 supplies the measuring terms. A db(A) is a sound pressure level in decibels on the A-weighted scale, and a decibel meter is an instrument that meets or exceeds ANSI section 1.4, 1971 (r. 1976) standards for type 2 special purpose meters. "Plainly audible" means any sound that can be detected by a person using his or her unaided hearing. Words and phrases need not be discernible, and the definition expressly includes bass reverberation, so thumping bass at 25 feet counts even when no lyric can be understood.

Liability reaches anyone who uses, operates, or permits the equipment to be used or operated, so a driver and an owner who lets someone else run the system are both covered. "Person" includes an individual, corporation, association, partnership or limited partnership, which brings a company that owns the vehicle within the text.

Sec. 10.8-14 lists the article's exceptions: emergency vehicle sirens and warning devices, governmental public service work, parades, athletic games, and functions under a permit specifically approved by the Tuscaloosa City Council. Subsection (i) also says the article does not apply to the normal and usual operation of motor vehicles and trains. The editor's cross reference points to Sec. 13-2 et seq. for sound trucks and sound-amplifying equipment. Sec. 10.8-15 was adopted as Ord. No. 4066 on 1-19-95 and amended by Ord. No. 9031, § 3, on 2-9-21.