November 1, 2015
Noise Free America: A Coalition to Promote Quiet
For immediate release
Contact:
Rick Holtsclaw
[email protected]
Ted Rueter
[email protected]
877-664-7366
Chapel Hill: The Massachusetts Motorcycle Association has won this month’s Noisy Dozen award from Noise Free America: A Coalition to Promote Quiet for attempting to undermine enforcement of laws against excessive motorcycle noise. Members of these biker groups love making thunderous noise–in violation of state and federal laws.
Rick Holtsclaw is a retired 31-year veteran of the Houston police department, where he placed an emphasis on noise enforcement. He states, “I was successful in my vehicular noise enforcement initiative in Houston, with a 99.8 percent conviction rate for all of my noise citations.” Holtsclaw is the founder of the “Loud Motorcycles Suck” Facebook page.
Officer Holtsclaw is warning Massachusetts state legislators that the Massachusetts Motorcycle Association is engaged in a campaign of confusion and obfuscation. Their goal, he states, “is to make motorcycle noise enforcement so confusing, expensive, and convoluted that enforcement agencies will simply continue to fail to act.”
Holstclaw states that “these disingenuous, self-indulgent ‘biker rights’ organizations are deceitful. They wish to protect their own unlawful, intrusive, and irresponsible behavior. My vehicular noise enforcement effort in Houston was so successful that the biker rights organizations twice confronted Mayor Parker. The final confrontation with Mayor Parker ended with a verbal threat directed at the mayor and Houston’s city council. The biker rights organizations are not to be trusted. They act entirely in their own selfish, hedonistic, self-interest. Their only goal is to continue making loud, illegal, ear-splitting noise. This noise is especially dangerous to our children, our elderly, and our handicapped.”
On November 14, 2015, Officer Holtsclaw released a video regarding the enforcement of laws against illegally equipped, illegally loud motorcycles. The video also discusses the tactics of the motorcycle “rights” organizations as they endeaqvor to generate confusion regarding illegal motorcycle noise.
Holtsclaw issued a plea to members of the Massachusetts state legislature: “Please use discernment and wisdom when dealing with these hedonistic personalities. Please view this video before supporting any bill proposed by the biker ‘rights’ organizations. The information in my video clearly counters the misinformation presented by the Massachusetts Motorcycle Association. We need to stop the vehicular noise debacle assaulting this nation.”
Ted Rueter, director of Noise Free America: A Coalition to Promote Quiet stated that “it is ironic that biker groups focus on ‘rights.’ There is no right to make noise. There is no right to break state and federal law. State and federal law specifies that motorcycle exhausts are not to be removed or altered for the purpose of making noise. Thunderous motorcycle noise is illegal. Legislators and police officials in Massachusetts and throughout the nation should enforce the law and protect citizens’ right to peace and quiet.”
Noise Free America: A Coalition to Promote Quiet is a national citizens’ organization devoted to noise reduction. Past “winners” of the Noisy Dozen award include Erie, Pennsylvania (for their “Roar on the Shore” noise festival); the West Houston Reguladores motorcycle club (for their membership of police officers with loud, illegal motorcycle exhausts); and Hot Springs, North Carolina (for sponsoring a motorcycle noise festival).