Alabama: Is it legal to put a train horn on a car?
Alabama has no train horn ban, but it is a crime to make an unnecessary or unreasonably loud or harsh sound with a horn.
Alabama requires a working horn audible from 200 feet and bans sirens on ordinary vehicles. Unlike most states, its loudness rule targets how a horn is used rather than how it is built: drivers may use a horn only as a reasonable warning and may not make an unreasonably loud or harsh sound with it. A train horn, built to sound like a locomotive, is likely to be treated as unreasonably loud or harsh when sounded on the road. Violations are misdemeanors.
Conditions
- Horn must be audible from 200 feet
- Horn may be used only as a reasonable warning
- No unnecessary or unreasonably loud or harsh horn sounds
- No sirens on non-emergency vehicles
What the law says
It shall be unlawful for any vehicle to be equipped with or for any person to use upon a vehicle any siren or for any person at any time to use a horn otherwise than as a reasonable warning or to make any unnecessary or unreasonably loud or harsh sound by means of a horn or other warning device.
Sources
- Code of Alabama § 32-5-213 (FindLaw reproduction) Mirror of official text · codes.findlaw.com
Confirm with the state
- Agency
- Alabama Law Enforcement Agency (Highway Patrol Division)
- Phone
- 334-676-6000
- Website
- alea.gov
How bordering states compare
- Florida Allowed with limitsFlorida has no train horn ban, but no horn may make an unreasonably loud or harsh sound or a whistle.
- Georgia Allowed with limitsGeorgia has no train horn ban, but no horn may make an unreasonably loud or harsh sound or a whistle.
- Mississippi Allowed with limitsMississippi bars any horn from making an unreasonably loud or harsh sound or a whistle, which a train horn likely breaks.
- Tennessee Allowed with limitsTennessee bans sirens and exhaust, compression or spark plug whistles, and forbids unreasonably loud or harsh horn sounds, without naming air horns.