Cheyenne’s new vehicle noise ordinance was unanimously passed by the City Council to stop obnoxious motorists who drive their loud cars, trucks and motorcycles late at night, disrupting people’s sleep.
But the first driver to be pulled over and given a ticket for being too loud soon after it went on the books in late September was auto mechanic Geno Stecks, who was driving a fairly unassuming 2006 Subaru with a modified muffler.
It also wasn’t in the middle of the night or in a residential section of the capital city. Stecks said it was on a main thoroughfare at the intersection of East Lincolnway and Hugur Avenue at 2:45 in the afternoon.
“Communists. Control freaks!” is how Stecks responded when asked what he thought about the City Council members who approved the ordinance after many people opposed it during public testimony at three council meetings.
He Wasn’t Speeding
Stecks was on the job when he got busted, transporting auto parts for FM Automotive when he heard the police siren.
He told the officer that he didn’t think he’d been speeding, but was informed the stop was made because of excessive noise.
This how the encounter went, according to Stecks:
“I couldn’t hear my radio for your exhaust,” the officer told him.
“I said, ‘Turn your volume knob up,’” Stecks said he replied. "I couldn’t hear my exhaust because of my radio, because I’ve got a kick-ass stereo in it.”
In hindsight, Stecks said he’s since though of some other creative responses.
“I wish I had told him, ‘What are you going to tell the Hells Angels if they come roaring through town? Are you going to pull them over and cite them for having too loud exhaust? You probably wouldn’t live through it,’” said the bearded Stecks, wearing a T-shirt that depicted a full mug with the word “Beer – It’s What’s for Dinner.”
Too Few Tickets
A spokesperson for the Cheyenne Police Department said that after Stecks broke the ice as the first to be ticketed for driving too loudly, 43 other motorists were given noise violation citations in 2025, and 33 more so far this year.
Even those are way too few, said a council member who supported the noise ordinance.
“They should be writing 300 or 400,” said City Council Vice President Pete Laybourn. “The problem is immense, and I’m very disappointed with how it’s being handled. The ordinance hasn’t been effective at all.”
Laybourn said residents are purposely modifying their mufflers and making noise in all parts of the city, at all hours day and night, and also deliberately speeding.
“They tried to disrupt Friday Night at the Plaza last week, driving up Capitol (Avenue) and backfiring,” he said. “It was really, really bad.”
City Council President Tom Segrave was one of several councilmen who brought up the issue last summer because he was getting so many complaints from Cheyenne residents about excessive noise from motorists.
“I live off Yellowstone Road, and I can tell you it’s quite a sight to see a pack of people riding these loud little motorcycles down Yellowstone at night, often up until 1 a.m., popping wheelies,” Segrave said.
Too Early To Tell
He said it’s too early to know if the ordinance is making a difference.
Segrave said he hasn’t been receiving complaints, but figures that will change during the summer when more people have their windows open.
The main difference between the new ordinance and a previous one is that it allows a police officer to use his or her judgment about whether a vehicle is too loud.
The former regulation required a meter to be used at least 25 feet away, which Segrave said made it unenforceable.
Stecks said he paid the $100 fine, which would be increased to $200 if he breaks the ordinance again within a year.
Possible jail time is on the books for a third offense, plus a $500 fine, but City Attorney John Brodie told Cowboy State Daily when the ordinance was passed last year that it’s "extremely unlikely” anyone would be jailed.
“If anything, jail is maybe an imposed part of the sentence that would then be suspended,” he said.
“People told me, ‘You could have fought this,’” Steck said. “I said I’d be in worse trouble because I would have ended up in jail after I told the judge and the court how crooked they are.
"There would have been F-bombs involved. When you’re a mechanic, F-bombs are the terminology of the trade.”
The ordinance requires all vehicles driven within city limits to be equipped with a muffler. It prohibits vehicles that bypass or cut out their mufflers to be louder and those that create “excessive smoke.”
‘Crotch Rockets’ Not OK
Stecks said he agrees with the idea that people who drive small motorcycles known as “crotch rockets” up and down the street after 10 p.m. need to be ticketed.
But he emphasized, “Not drivers who are just doing their job in the middle of the day.”
He said it would have made more sense if he’d received a ticket for a machine that he knows is really noisy: a fast 1931 Model A rat rod named “Clyde” that he built several years ago.
Several of Stecks’ co-workers smiled and nodded their heads as he said this, because they know exactly how loud Clyde can be cranked it up.
Stecks said his main problem with the ordinance is that it relies on a police officer to make a judgment call about how loud the noise is.
“They need to measure it,” he said. “That’s the only way they should ever do this.”
