The rise in noise on Oahu is becoming intolerable. Military and civilian audio stores sell speakers for vehicles capable of emitting 12,000-plus watts, 300 to 400 times more powerful than factory-installed audio systems; auto shops sell and install exhaust systems that increase auto and truck exhaust volume many times over compared with the factory-installed system; and Oahu's motorcycle trade readily replaces manufacturer's mufflers with straight-pipe exhausts with no mufflers, increasing their volume to unbearable levels.

And all of these modifications are illegal. Honolulu Revised Ordinance (ROH) 41-31 makes it a citable infraction with escalating fines for each occurrence to have a stereo installed that can be heard more than 30 feet from the vehicle. However, systems installed in many cars on Oahu's roads have systems that can be heard many, many blocks away. Hawaii Revised Statute 291-24.5 makes it a citable infraction with fines to modify a vehicle's muffler or to drive a vehicle with modified mufflers that increase the vehicle's noise volume. However, all over the island you see and hear these vehicles operating openly and, it seems, with impunity. HRS 291-24 makes it a citable infraction with fines to operate a motorcycle without a muffler.

So why is it that these vehicles drive freely onto and off of military bases, and why doesn't the Honolulu Police Department consider it important to remove these vehicles from our highways?

E-mails to the Navy's Exchange manager are responded to with sympathy, but they are quick to add that they intend to continue offering high-powered stereos for sale to their customers who, in the opinion of the manager, should have “;choice.”; Calls to HPD reporting these “;boom cars”; and loud and illegally modified car and motorcycle exhausts are more often than not unheeded.

How much noise is our small island expected to absorb before retailers and law enforcement officials begin acting responsibly? And if they do not, when will the state act to implement compliance inspections for mufflers and loud stereos as part of the annual vehicle inspection program? The single act of implementing compliance inspections, in just one year, would result in a dramatic decrease in these unnecessary and harmful noises that Oahu is forced to suffer each day.