> Engine/exhaust noise is a problem but easy to solve
It's easy from a technical standpoint but practically impossible from a human one. The vast majority of people simply don't notice or care that some large percentage of vehicles are intentionally modified to be louder than the legal maximum. Police won't enforce it, and most citizens barely register the noise as present, much less a problem.
Banning ICE vehicles altogether may very well be the only thing that actually gets the problem solved, since that actually has more momentum behind it than enforcement of existing noise regulations does.
I'm not sure "large percentage" is a statement I'd agree with, my searching skills are failing me, do you have any kind of source for that? I'd be shocked if it was over 5%...
I live near a medium-busy street. I haven't seen actual numbers but it wouldn't surprise me if at peak hours there are over 100 cars passing per minute.
If 5% of those are overly loud, that's an average of a very loud noise every 3 seconds, and most of them will take somewhere between 5 and 10 seconds to come and finally go away. If you don't think that's large, we have very different noise thresholds.
I guess "large" is subjective. 1-5% is the ballpark I have in my head based on experience, which qualifies as "large" to me when I get passed by thousands of cars a day.
The hard numbers I'm aware of are about motorcycles, which have much higher rates of illegal modifications than other vehicles. This source documents a bunch of other sources, with estimates ranging from 40-70%:
People that purposefully install loader than necessary pipes on their vehicles ought to be forced to stay awake by having a marching band play nonstop in their bedroom until the loud exhaust pipe is removed
It's easy from a technical standpoint but practically impossible from a human one. The vast majority of people simply don't notice or care that some large percentage of vehicles are intentionally modified to be louder than the legal maximum. Police won't enforce it, and most citizens barely register the noise as present, much less a problem.
Banning ICE vehicles altogether may very well be the only thing that actually gets the problem solved, since that actually has more momentum behind it than enforcement of existing noise regulations does.