Senate Transportation hears SLR report on excessive vehicle noise, reviews options for S.66

At a Senate Transportation Committee meeting, lawmakers heard an overview of a report prepared for the Agency of Transportation that evaluated ways to address excessive motor-vehicle noise and considered implementation implications for bill S.66.

The report, prepared by SLR Consulting, was produced under Act 41 (2023) and examined whether a statutory or inspection-manual noise standard should be adopted, the cost to add noise testing to the Vermont Periodic Inspection Manual (VPIM), training costs for law enforcement, non-testing enforcement options and approaches used in other states.

SLR Consulting’s U.S. acoustics manager, David Jones, told the committee the study did not endorse a single path but rather laid out benefits and challenges for five broad options: strengthened visual inspection language in the VPIM, sound-level testing in inspection stations, law-enforcement roadside sound testing, a testing-as-a-defense approach (used in Maine), and fixed-location automated “drive-by” systems including acoustic-camera technology. “The report includes no specific recommendation about whether there should be a noise standard,” Jones said, adding the study’s role was to present trade-offs.

Jones described key stakeholder concerns revealed during interviews with the Vermont League of Cities and Towns, Vermont Sheriffs Association, Vermont Association of Police Chiefs, Vermont State Police and the Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles. He said stakeholders cited three recurring issues: enforceability and repeatability of…