I broke the law today
For some reason today, I decided to take the long route to work today. I went up Illinois 8 to Koerner Road, hung a ralph at Charter Oak and took that straight up Allen Road to Pioneer Parkway. All the way, I had the windows rolled down and the blues (WGLT 103.5 FM) cranked on the car stereo. I’m sure I could be heard 50 feet away, let alone 75.
For this, there are those who think my car ahould be impounded.
There wasn’t a single homeowner along that route whose windows would have been rattled by what I was doing. But I was within city limits for about half of that ride. The law makesd no exceptions. My car would have been impounded had any police officer so inclined decided to do so, under this proposed law.
I cannot define any city that would do that as a decent place for any free American to live.
Billy Dennis is a former reporter and editor at small daily and weekly newspapers in Illinois and Missouri. He comments on media, news and politics. He also owns and operates 
Oh come now, you wouldn’t have been pulled over. a) you are white, b) you are playing WGLT and not hip hop rap music, c) you are on the right side of town. You don’t fit the profile.
Does that make it worse, or does that make it better?
Profile or not, your music would NOT have rattled the windows of a house..there were, I’m sure no “BOOM, BOOM..BOOM” Might have had some bass in there but I do doubt it was loud enough. I do see the point you are trying to make though. It would be a difficult ordianance to enforce. Wording would have to be soooo very specific.
Sorry, Bill, but I’m afraid that I think you are a jerk. You can certainly make a case that you have a right to listen to any music you like, but forcing other people to listen is just plain wrong. And it is wrong to try and claim the moral high ground when you are infringing on a homeowner’s right to avoid listening to your music in the privacy of his own home.
James
And I suggest that it’s utterly unreasonable to expect to live in a CITY or within 50 feet of the center line of a state highway and NOT hear music from passing cars.
Anyone who thinks different and demands that the city (and taxpayers) pass and enforce a law to make this happen is really fooling him or herself.
Again, there is a value neutral way to do this: Ban the sort of stereo configuration that pollutes neighborhoods with bass vibrations.
But that would be hard and no one’s done it before.
I’ve got to laugh at this. I’m not a fan of BOOM, BOOM, BOOM going down the road, but the city is going about this the wrong way, and regardless of what they say, are probably setting themselves up for a discrimination suit. So, a real life situation comes to mind.
Many moons ago in the muscle car era, a friend of mine got pulled over by a county cop in Morton. At the time, my buddy’s stereo in his car didn’t work so he was listening to a transistor radio via an earpiece – not unlike the ones people use for cellphones in their cars nowadays. Somehow, the officer noticed the earpiece and pulled him over. It was the officer’s determination that between the earpiece and the roar of a modified Chrysler big block V-8 (Oh, yeah!), that there was no possible way that my friend could have heard the siren of an emergency vehicle so that he could take appropriate action. I don’t know if there REALLY was a law or if the officer was just being an assh0le, but he ended up issuing a warning ticket to my friend.
If Peoria somehow instituted this, no matter what you are listening to classical, country, rap, death speed metal, NPR, Bob & Tom, the best of Air Supply, etc. and it’s so damned loud that you can’t hear a siren…and there is a very non-discriminatory way of testing whether you can or not, officer Friendly gets out his pad of tickets….
My understanding is that the sound-wave generated by some of the super-low bass tones popular among teens and rappers is so large that it actually complete’s it wave-forms outside the vehicle.
What the soon-to-be-deaf occupants experience is mostly the pressure impulse from the amplifier and not the actual *sound* of the wave/music – which if it’s a low enough signal doesn’t have a big problem passing through walls and stuff. Frequency matters.
Breaking the law aside….why wasn’t ex Gov Ryan in handcuffs and a jumpsuit yesterday??