Is That Loud Exhaust Illegal in Oklahoma?

When I was twenty years old I had a Ford Ranger. It was yellow like the trucks on Baywatch, had an ultra-reliable 2.3L inline four-cylinder engine in it, and I once cut a hole in the bed to install a four-inch straight pipe stack exhaust on it.

I was a bit of a redneck kid.

It was beyond loud.

When the old gang gets back together, my buddy Josh loves to tell the stories about running around in that ridiculous pickup.

It was so incredibly loud that I had to pull over and turn my truck off just to talk on the phone.

Even worse, people would always say "What the hell is that big pipe sticking up out of your bed?" and I would defend my decision to my core.

Twenty years later, when I hear my nephew's straight-piped hoopty, I get it.

I told you that in order to tell you this...

Loud exhausts are illegal in Oklahoma.

While you would never guess this was the case, loud and modified exhausts are against the law.

Oklahoma Statute 47-12-402 states:

Every vehicle shall be equipped, maintained, and operated so as to prevent excessive or unusual noise. Every motor vehicle shall at all times be equipped with a muffler or other effective noise-suppressing system in good working order and in constant operation, and no person shall use a muffler cut-out, bypass or similar device. No person shall modify the exhaust system of a motor vehicle in any manner which will amplify or increase the noise or sound emitted louder than that emitted by the muffler originally installed on the vehicle.

Put simply, it's illegal to use a muffler that emits more noise than factory, and to modify your exhaust to make more noise is totally against the law. Period.

I know what you're thinking... It never fails. Every time we're driving down the road and hear a hollow, throaty V8 screaming by, it's always some Kyle in a Mustang. The odds are 10-to-1 that it's an illegal exhaust system.

The same goes for every Sam out there in the truck with those big chrome donkey-dong tailpipes. Sure, it's cool that your little Cummins sounds like a big rig, but just as it is with sports cars, it's illegal.

Additionally from §47.12.402

The engine and power mechanism of every motor vehicle shall be so equipped and adjusted as to prevent the escape of excessive fumes or smoke, or both.

That also means the rolling of coal is also illegal in the Sooner State.

If it's illegal, why does everyone roll coal and/or have loud exhaust?

The few people I've talked with about this over the weekend asked the same thing you're probably thinking... Is this a new law? It's not. This law was last amended in November 2003... The same year I put that big stack pipe on my lifted four-banger mini-truck.

Here's the thing, while it's the law here in Oklahoma, it's overwhelmingly ignored by police... Or at least it's ignored until the Boys in Blue want to really screw over the mouthy kid with the loud pipes.