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Photo by David Bloom/Postmedia/File

Loud vehicles are by no means a new problem, or one that’s exclusive to Edmonton.

“It’s not just … redneck, pick-up truck Alberta where this is happening,” McKeen said.

But, for whatever reason, Edmonton is one of the leading cities in the country — perhaps the world — on the issue, he said.

For years, McKeen’s been lambasting “little wee-wee boys,” as he called motorcyclists in one 2009 column, disturbing peaceful neighbourhoods.

“Pretend bikers are neither outlaws nor rebels,” he wrote in another column for the Edmonton Journal that year. “They are followers and poseurs, with insecurity issues and small, limp egos. They are immature and likely premature.”

Even earlier, in 2006, McKeen vowed justice, saying “slobs ride hogs.”

“You’ve been warned, slobs,” he wrote. “Silence yourselves. Or you will be silenced.”

Now that he’s in a position to do something, he’s softened his tone, and broadened his focus to include other noisy vehicles.

“I actually think the other types of vehicles strangely caught up,” McKeen said. “There was a period where it seemed like it was just motorcycles, now it’s everybody’s getting in on the act.”

When the program launches, Edmonton peace officers will be able to hand out $250 fines to drivers of vehicles that are louder than 85 decibels, the level at which noise can become harmful to our hearing. It’s about the same loudness as a lawnmower or window air conditioner. To put that in context with other city sounds, a subway is around 90 decibels. A shouted conversation (common enough in Edmonton) lands at around the same loudness. Sirens — perhaps of the law enforcement variety — clatter into the eardrums at 140 decibels.