(possibly unpopular opinion) Cars and motorcycles with intentionally loud exhausts should be seized and crushed.

I'd like to preface my rant by stating that I am a car enthusiast and bear no ill-will towards those inclined to experience the hobby responsibly and without inconvenience to others.

However, in what I'm sure is a common frustration for other folks who enjoy peace and quiet, I am completely fed up with the tuner culture promoting unnecessarily loud exhausts.

On a gorgeous day like today, I don't want to crack a window for fresh air, just to be greeted by some fartcan douche flying down the street and rattling my windows with straight-piped engine noise and backfires. I was hoping this culture would die out after Fast and Furious became a parody of itself and its original target audience developed some modicum of insight with age, but I was sorely mistaken.

Sadly, like most of us, I deal with it with little to no recourse. My neighbor two houses down has an older 3 Series and a G37 Coupe. More power to him, except that both cars' mufflers are essentially non-existent and he loves letting the whole town know it on a daily basis, sometimes well after midnight. Moreso, he has regular get-togethers with his buddies who share his hobby and somehow still wear their Jersey Shore looks and personalities unironically. Social distancing violations, reckless driving, and ghetto bass cannon shittiness ensue.

That guy aside, it's come to the point that I recognize the neighborhood turdmobiles by their exhaust notes. I'm also about a mile away from both Route 1 and the GSP, and have noticed the stop light drag races and deliberate noise pollution pick up drastically in the past couple of weeks. I can't possibly be the only one driven nuts by it.

From a purely technical perspective (and I say this as both an engineer and a car guy), there is little to no performance gain to be had from loud exhausts in modern road cars. There is zero reason for backfiring. But, it's never truly been about performance, has it? It's been about showing off and turning heads, about being the most obnoxious motherfucker at every stoplight and every residential street at 2AM, and about fulfilling one's inferiority complex.

While police surely have more important things to worry about nowadays, there is zero enforcement of the exhaust law. Noise pollution is pollution, and it has real effects on stress and overall psychological well-being over time. The collective damage is more substantial than many people realize. We can't prevent construction noise, planes, or other unavoidable sources, but we can surely prevent these moronic displays of deep-seated inadequacy and toxic masculinity. With the understanding that police can't be everywhere, the punishment needs to be immediate and severe.

Downvote all you want, I've just had it already.