In March, the Newport Beach Police Department announced their intention to conduct enforcement operations in Newport Beach through this summer, focusing on loud or modified vehicle exhaust and street racing due to its growing, negative impact on residents’ safety and quality of life.
NBPD Traffic Commander, Lieutenant Damon Psaros commented that “in the past few months, the Newport Beach Police Department has conducted several successful operations within the city, but the problem neither begins nor ends at our city limits. Through a partnership with every other law enforcement agency along Coastal Orange County, as well as several neighboring law enforcement agencies with freeway and arterial access points to the coast, this enforcement operation has significantly expanded.”
Those allied law enforcement agencies joining the NBPD enforcement operations have experienced similar issues in their cities and jurisdictions. These participating agencies have pursued similar education measures as the City of Newport Beach such as issuing press releases, visiting car shows, as well as placing several electronic signboards with messaging in high traffic areas within their cities and jurisdictions to educate the public on vehicle exhaust and street racing laws in California.
In preparation for these joint enforcement operations, the Newport Beach Police Department Traffic Division developed and hosted California POST-approved training for allied law enforcement agencies that will participate. The course involves both classroom and hands-on, in-field vehicle inspections under the instruction of referees from the California Bureau of Automotive Repair. This training ensures police officers can more readily identify loud/modified vehicle exhaust and other illegal modifications to vehicles to increase their effectiveness in enforcement efforts.
On Sunday, May 23, a joint enforcement operation was conducted utilizing over fifty motorcycle officers and other police officers from the Police Departments in Newport Beach, Seal Beach, Huntington Beach, Laguna Beach, Irvine, and Santa Ana, as well as the Orange County Sheriff’s Department and the California Highway Patrol.
In addition, four investigators from the California Department of Motor Vehicles and four referees from the California Bureau of Automotive Repair participated in enforcement efforts with the police departments along the entire length of Coastal Orange County as well as freeway and arterial access points to the coast.
The results of this successful joint operation:
- 445 Vehicles were stopped for violations
- 348 Vehicles were cited for vehicle code violations (which includes loud/modified exhaust)
- 44 Vehicles were inspected on-site for modified exhaust violations by a BAR Referee
- 16 Vehicles were referred to on-site DMV Investigators for possible registration violations
- 4 Vehicles were cited for exceeding 100 MPH
- 4 Vehicles were stopped and the drivers/passengers were arrested for possession of narcotics
