Late last year, Toronto mayor John Tory expressed his intent to start fining cars and bikes that create excessive noise in his fine Canadian city. Last Monday evening, Mayor Tory held a press conference to announce an upcoming blitz and new by-law that will see Toronto police cracking down on vehicles that “have been modified, altered or used in a way that is excessively noisy,” via blogTO.
He also took the opportunity to perpetuate a popular stereotype about dudes—and yes, even we’ll admit they are usually dudes—who choose to ride around making a lot more noise than everybody else.
“I think people who live in the city understand that it’s not going to be Algonquin Park and it’s not going to be silent at all times,” Tory told the press. “But the thing they have no understanding and no patience for, and I tend to agree with them, is noise that is caused by vehicles—especially people who are deliberately revving their engines and otherwise modifying their equipment to create an excessive level of noise that is disrupting the lives of people who are living in the city.”
The mayor then, smirking, echoed a theory apparently presented to him by his wife as to why some people feel the need to drive around making such a racket. “My wife has explained this many times to me as being simply an outcropping of the inadequacies that certain people feel—mostly men who drive these cars around. I will go no further than that.”
Motorists caught during the blitz may be fined up to the Canadian equivalent of around $120.
As to the whole inadequacy thing? We’re sure there are straight-pipe-enthusiasts in the city with, erm, pipes of all shapes and sizes. Correlation does not imply causation, okay?