Loud music fine in pennsylvania, I pleaded not guilty

[EROver730]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Pennsylvania

I got a noise control violation for playing my music to loud.

I have no system in my car, nor good speakers. Everything is factory based.
this happen in easton Pa. Northampton County

citation # P6486118-2

0 s13111.03 ssc Noise Control

does anyone have any advise on how to beat this charge?

[Pratt]

"I have no system in my car, nor good speakers"

Is this supposed to be your defence? And what do you mean by "system" here?

[Maestro64]

That looks like local ordinance not a state statue, so you need to look up what the ordinance says and I bet, you will find language in their about how low the noise must be to violated this ordinance, if it written well, it well have continuous dBA level that you can not exceed as well as some peak dBA level you can not exceed for a period of time.

If this ordinance is written this way, the first question is how did the officer make the measurement, his so called trained ear (ask for his cal cer for his ears or the last time he had his hearing checked) or he used a meter in which case again where is the cal cert for it and how did he make the measurement. Making sound measurement is not a easy tasks many things go into the measurement Distance from the source has the most effect, so if he stuck it up to you speaker and crappy ones you could be over the limit.

Anyway you get the idea if the law is written well you might have defense that the officers measurement was totally subjective if he did not use a meter. However, if the ordinance is crappy like many are it could be as long as the person thinks it is too loud good enough to issue a ticket.

But first you need to find the law, and it does not seem like Northampton posts their laws, which might put them in violation of state mandate the all local government make their rule and ordinance available on the web. Anyway here is simple example, grant it a bad one since it does not specify a level.

[url=http://www.hazletoncity.org/public/city-ordinances/noise-ordinance.html]Noise Ordinance*-*Official Web Site of the City of Hazleton, Pennsylvania[/url]

Here is example of a better written one it specifies levels and how the measurement must be made.

[url=http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_noise_ordinance_for_the_city_of_Philadelphia_PA]WikiAnswers - What is the noise ordinance for the city of Philadelphia PA[/url]

according to this article it looks like Northampton has levels in the ordinance.

[url]http://www.noisepollution.org/news/1998/sep27.htm#Companies%20in%20Northampton%20Pennsylvania%20Violate%20Local%20Noise%20Ordinance%20But%20 Town%20Officials%20Refuse%20to%20Take%20Immediate%20Enforcement%20Measures[/url]