A Brisbane Barrister has called on the Queensland Government to throw out the current exhaust laws after two cases against riders were dismissed in the Brisbane Magistrates Court on 14 September 2020.
Barrister Levente Jurth, who wrote an article for Motorbike Writer in 2016 saying aftermarket exhausts were not illegal, says the current rules are “unworkable”.
The Magistrates Court of Queensland at Brisbane recently found Levente’s clients, Craig Rowland and Jason Tziros, not guilty and dismissed charges against them relating to their motorcycle exhausts exceeding the relevant stationary noise level under section 5(1)(a)(vi) of the Transport Operations (Road Use Management – Vehicle Standards and Safety) Regulation 2010.
The Department of Transport and Main Roads who ran the prosecution was also ordered to pay $1500 in legal costs.
Mr Rowland and Mr Tziros were charged in a police operation on Mt Tambourine in May 2018 after having their Harley Davidson motorcycle exhausts tested by Senior Constable Paul Hocken of the Road Policing Command, Road Policing Task Force, Boondall, the State’s most senior and most experienced exhaust noise tester.
The Court found that the mandated test procedure set out in the National Stationary Exhaust Noise Test Procedure for In-Service Motor Vehicles – September 2006 required strict compliance for a valid noise test to support a charge and Senior Constable Hocken had failed to comply with it in a number of respects.
His errors included failing to properly calibrate the sound level meter and failing to properly measure the position of the microphone of the sound level meter.
“When the requirements for obtaining a valid noise test are so complex that it involves lengthy legal argument in court and the State’s top cop with some three decade’s experience and one of only two police officers qualified to train other police officers in exhaust noise testing cannot get it right, it’s time to throw the current rules out and start again,” Mr Jurth said.
“This case has demonstrated that the current rules are simply unworkable, both from the point of view of riders attempting to comply with them as well as police officers attempting to enforce them.”