Illinois: Cars with Loud Stereos to be Seized

[Otherguy Overby]

http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/19/1955.asp

Illinois: Cars with Loud Stereos to be Seized
A new Rockford, Illinois ordinance allows police to seize any car based on the accusation that it played loud music.

Loud car stereoThis month the city of Rockford, Illinois will begin allowing residents to call the police and have any vehicle seized on the mere accusation that the car used a loud stereo system. Under an ordinance adopted August 20, police can impound any vehicle if police believe it is likely that it played loud music. Cars taken will be held until fines of $150 to $750 are paid -- in addition to a $75 towing fee, a $15 to $20 per day storage fee and a $60 per hour charge if the police officer has to wait more than an hour for the tow truck.

"No person shall operate... any device used to... reproduce any recorded sound if the device is located... in any motor vehicle on the public way and the sound can be heard from 75 feet or more from the device," Ordinance 2007-158-0 states in defining the new crime.

There is no requirement that a police officer responding to a complaint objectively measure sound levels with electronic equipment or even personally witness an alleged offense. Instead, the ordinance states that "hearsay evidence shall be admissible" and that property will be seized upon the assertion of probable cause.

If a motorist believes his car has been unlawfully towed on a Friday after 5pm, he may challenge the taking by "depositing a written request for a hearing in the silver drop box located behind city hall," according to the ordinance. The city must then respond by the following Wednesday. If the registered owner was not driving at the time the car was taken, he will be mailed a letter within ten days. After this time he is given less than fifteen days to request a hearing. The city may then wait another 45 days to schedule a hearing while storage fees accumulate up to $1100.

A hearing officer designated by Rockford will decide under a preponderance of evidence standard whether it is likely the motorist is guilty, in which case the hearing officer's employers will collect the fine and fee revenue from the motorist. If the vehicle's owner does not receive the mailed notice or cannot pay the fees within 30 days, the city will confiscate the vehicle permanently.

A complete copy of the ordinance is available in a 265k PDF file at the source link below. If you like our articles, be sure to sign up for free email updates or our RSS feed.

Source: PDF File Ordinance Number 2007-158-0 (City of Rockford, Illinois, 8/20/2007)

There's quite a bit wrong with this, both morally and constitutionally.  Illinois at work, for the children.

Your opinion?

[Manedwolf]

Absolutely wrong.

police can impound any vehicle if police believe it is likely that it played loud music.

Why? Because it's so equipped to do so? Sort of like everyone with a gun is a murderer?

Some people have boom cars that they only take to competition. My car's system is about 800 watts, but that's because that provides pure, clean sound at low volume as well, I listen to trance and progressive that benefits from that. It could crank up enough that a remote control would be needed, but I've never done that, and have no desire to do that. If someone opens the trunk, though, they'd see the massive Infinity amp bank built into the trunk sidewall, so could assume it could play loud music. Because it can. But it doesn't.

It's assuming that the legally owned equipment is intent to misuse, just like IL is about guns, so no surprise.

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

i read the pdf and am less worried. kinda amused that some of the loud dimwits are gonna get whacked.if some folks used a lil common sense this never woulda happened  they didn't  now thers gonna be crying and gnashing of teeth. and some missing loud cars.

[RocketMan]

I'd like to "seize" some of the buttheads that cruise down my street at midnight, rattling the walls and windows.
I don't like Rockford's ordinance, but is it too much to have an open season on these types at least once a year?  I'd buy a tag.  

[Boomhauer]

is it too much to have an open season on these types at least once a year?  I'd buy a tag.

When does RPG season open?

[HankB]

Seizing property on hearsay evidence?

Isn't one of the fundamental principles of US justice the idea that one has the right to face one's accuser?

Especially note the sentence:

If the vehicle's owner does not receive the mailed notice or cannot pay the fees within 30 days, the city will confiscate the vehicle permanently.

I don't see this standing a court test.

(And a thought . . . are they deliberately trying to provoke something? Someone other than the car's owner can, and probably will, be hurt before the law is brought to bear . . .)

[Manedwolf]

If it's being misused and violating a noise ordinance, pull it over. Otherwise it's the same slippery slope as assuming that everyone who has a semiauto rifle intends to or might have used it in a rampage or killing.

Unless there's evidence of it being misused, there's no case. Unless they make it illegal to have stereos over a certain wattage, which I wouldn't put past Daley's lickshoe Blago and the rubberstamp legislature there.

[Thor]

While I absolutely loathe those bass thumping vehicles that rattle the windows and walls as they drive by, I'm not comfortable with the cops MAILING a ticket to somebody that ALLEGEDLY violated the noise ordinance. If the cops catch them in the act, that would seem more legitimate. THEN, if they don't pay the fine, they get a bench warrant, just like everybody else. This confiscation of vehicles goes just way too far.

[brimic]

Hurray for the nanny state!

 

[Gewehr98]

Pardon the pun, but something doesn't sound right in this story.  Some details are being left out, I'd wager.

Whilst in the PRK, my CHP friends had an ordnance they enforced that was similar, but it was based on decibels and the volume one could hear the offending tubthumpermobile from a given distance.

I hate 'em, and they're about silly with their license plates rattling away on the trunk.  I had one tubthumper who had my own rear view mirrors buzzing from many, many yards away eventually pull alongside in Sacramento one night.  He had earplugs in - so he was willing to damage everybody's hearing but his own.   

[Manedwolf]

Agreed that IF they violate a noise ordinance they should be pulled over, but there's also plenty of law-abiding citizens who have high-wattage systems just for the sound quality at any volume, even low...or who have systems meant only for competing in shows, they don't power it up otherwise.

Saying they can be confiscated if it's "likely" they played loud music is overreaching, to me, since it equates possession of completely legal audio equipment with intent to violate the law.

This is the trunk of a typical show car. The owner might only use the full system at competitions, but according to this, it sounds like they could confiscate the car just because it could be loud...it's "likely".

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

try reading the actual law folks they posted link to it

[Manedwolf]

try reading the actual law folks they posted link to it

I did. Did you? Did you miss the bit about hearsay evidence being admissible? 

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

try reading the actual law folks they posted link to it

I did. Did you? Did you miss the bit about hearsay evidence being admissible? 

i did   and i terpreted it to allow the cops to pop someone for rattling windows without requiring them to be equipped with a measuring device to measure db.  but then again it could be my trusting nature showing here. i tend not to see government conspiracy and black helicopters behind every shrub. i take it your interptrtation is that the cops are so lacking in things to do that they will be conducting sound system road blocks and hauling the ride off to the gulag?the rerst of the ordinance seems typical of the legalese that accompanies the confiscation and recovery tap dance.it would behoove one not to loan car with a "sysem" to stupid friends

its unfortunate that the activities of some folks have generated this reaction  but i undestand it.i live in sticks 5 acre lots and the other nite some genius 4 lots over was showing off. i slept through it but my neighbor came over to borrow a stun gun to "counsel" the lad. opening the hatchback at 3 am to preen is monumentallt dumb  and the lil dweeb was sober   drunk i could understand it

[Gewehr98]

Hee-hee - black helicopters.  Now Manedwolf will have nightmares for the next several weeks over that.   

[Manedwolf]

Hee-hee - black helicopters.  Now Manedwolf will have nightmares for the next several weeks over that.   

What ARE you on about? I think you have me confused with someone else?

I'm someone who wanted the FBI to take down a bad instructional video and who wants the Feds to raid the tax-cheat Brown idiots swiftly and end their standoff. What's this "black helicopters" thing? And I call "troofers" and 9/11 conspiracy theorists nutjobs, which they are. I think you're confusing me with someone else...

That's two threads now you're poking at me with that, and it doesn't even apply to me or make sense! O_o

[brimic]

Vehicle confiscation is way beyond heavy-handed government. Pull  over an obnoxious driver with a stupid BOOM-TISS-BOOM-TISS song cranked to 120 decibels? Nothing 30 seconds with a pair of Linesman's pliers can't fix and send the driver on their merry way with a 'disturbing the peace' ticket.

[SteveS]

I want to get mad at this, but I can't.  I'll just have to live with my hypocrisy. 

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

I want to get mad at this, but I can't.  I'll just have to live with my hypocrisy. 

i hear ya  i remember a pg county cop telling me to turn it down you lil  and filling it out with an impressive lines of commentary about me and my liniage. today i'd get him canned for damaging my psyche. back then if i got mouthy i'd need orthodontia

[Phyphor]

On one hand, I can see why they'd do it... on the other it does seem kinda wrong to just take it from them...

On the gripping hand, anyone see the abuse factors in this? One could claim his neighbor was blasting them out, and wham! Here comes the towtruck...

[Brad Johnson]

As much as I dislike the window-rattling drone that occasionally passes through our parking lot, seizing a vehicle on hearsay evidence is a much greater issue.  Way WAAAYYYY too open to abuse, not to mention it directly violates several constitutional issues.  The first two that come to mind are presumption of guilt and illegal search and seizure.

Brad

[matis]

Just more government heavy-handedness and greed.

Seize the car on hearsay evidence or if the recipient fails to receive the notice?

They're becoming pretty brazen about their thievery, aren't they? 

Of course government can only get away with this because so many "citizens" have been dumbed down or are naturally as dumb as turnips.


That's what comes of teaching shame instead of pride in being American and in her heritage of freedom.


On the other hand, I absolutely hate having to suffer the ground-shaking racket some of these "music" lovers force on us.


It's illegal to seize their cars.  But would it be alright to just crush the car with them in it?

matis

[TF_FH]

As much as loud music bugs the hell out of me,(I mean, they don't even play good music on it!) hearsay evidence can only lead to problems.  Impounding it as well?  Thats just rediculous.

The first thing that pops to my mind is someone pulling that on someone who pissed them off for something else.  So the car gets impounded and then even if its proved that there was no violation, the individual still has to figure out how to deal without any transportation. 

Also with myself living in a town with a lot of military, what happens if they deploy somewhere or do some speical temporary duty and don't get the notice?  They come home to find out their car was, towed, impounded, and then disposed of?  All based on hearsay?

It just strikes me as "We don't have to prove anything anymore" and that is NOT the way anything should work.

[Mabs2]

If they actually hung around gas stations and stopped people for breaking the rules there (all the gas stations around here very clearly have signs prohibiting loud music) the problem would start to improve.
People around here...get out of their car with the music blasting, leave the door open, and go into the store and take their time.  It's crazy.

[lee n. field]

There's been an ordinance like that for years here.  I don't know if it's ever been enforced.