Newport Beach Police Campaign for Safer Streets

A Newport Beach police officer talks to the driver of a vehicle with loud emissions in Newport Beach, Calif. (Courtesy of the Newport Beach Police Department)

Newport Beach police are cracking down on modified vehicle exhausts and drunk driving in a push to make streets safer.

The initiatives were funded through a California Office of Traffic Safety (OTS) grant, which receives funding by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The Newport Beach Police Department (NBPD) received $237,000 to fund campaigns targeted at reducing deaths and injuries on Newport Beach roads.

Part of the money will pay for extra officers to patrol the streets looking for impaired drivers.

Police will also be on the lookout for other unsafe driving practices, such as speeding, not wearing a seatbelt, distracted driving, and not yielding to bicyclists or pedestrians.

“2020 has been a tough year so let’s try and end it on a good note by being safe on the road during the holidays,” Lt. Damon Psaros said in a press release. “Taking simple safety measures helps make sure we can all enjoy the holidays.”

He added: “The safety of our community is and always will be our mission. We are still out there in the middle of a pandemic because driving under the influence is still dangerous and puts a further strain on critical resources.”

Noisy Vehicles

The NBPD’s enforcement against loud vehicles with modified exhausts will address growing complaints from Newport Beach residents, said Psaros.

Vehicle exhausts are required to comply with state regulations; vehicles weighing less than 6,000 pounds—excluding motorcycles—cannot produce a sound greater than 95 A-level decibels, about the amount of noise a running motorcycle makes.

As part of an operation set to continue through Dec. 27, the NBPD will place extra officers on the streets patrolling for excessively loud vehicles with modified exhausts.

It’s also launching a social media campaign—and placed two electronic sign boards along the Pacific Coast Highway­­­—to heighten awareness.

Traffic Tuesday

The police department is promoting the campaigns through a “Traffic Tuesday” initiative, said NBPD Officer Heather Rangel.

“Each Tuesday for this month we'll be putting out information about the campaign, where we're at in the city, what's the type of enforcement that we're doing,” Rangel told The Epoch Times. “This week we put out the picture of the blue M3 for loud exhausts, and it's just giving people information about what we're trying to do and how we're trying to help our community, and then also bring awareness to this issue that we're having.”