British authorities want to turn down the volume on a road menace which one enthusiast likens to "the voice of God"
When Ritchie Warren plays his car stereo at a level he regards as unexceptional, the bass booms and snarls, waves of sound enveloping everyone in their path.
For Warren, the experience is life affirming. "If you think of explosions, thunder, volcanos, all release a subsonic sound. Booming sounds increase the adrenaline. It's a tribal and a cultural thing. Bass is like the voice of God."
But, for millions in town and cities across Britain, the seemingly limitless power and ferocity of in-car music is closer to a curse.
London officials are discussing how they might clamp down on monster stereos. They are considering if the owners could be penalised with penalty tickets or antisocial behaviour orders.
Many modified stereos will pump out up to 100 decibels but Warren's system, once judged the world's loudest, can reach 154, comparable to Concorde. A jackhammer emits 80 decibels.
Scotland Yard has been involved in the discussions and says it's willing to lobby for new restrictions.
Other authorities are experimenting with their own solutions. In Blaenau Gwent, in Wales, officials have been targeting hotspots, hoping to modify the behaviour of those who co-operate and punish those who will not. In Tayside, police can confiscate offending vehicles.
Discussions in the capital are being led by Valerie Shawcross, a member of the London assembly. "It's high time we clamped down on this sort of behaviour," she said. "Nobody objects to someone playing a bit of music as they drive along. We all do that. But these stereos take us into an entirely different situation. People living by major roads suffer incessant noise. It makes their lives a misery."
Jenny Jones, a Green party member and the mayor's environment spokeswoman, said: "This is noise pollution. The police could give on-the-spot fines and warnings, but most of all I'd like them to make drivers turn the noise down."
Marie Maguire, 42, lives in a second-storey flat above a south London junction. The noise from cars at the traffic lights is intolerable, she says. "Some of them shake the house. The windows rattle. It's impossible to watch television. It's just getting worse."
The problem is not straightforward. Anyone causing a noise nuisance from premises or from a stationary vehicle can have an abatement notice served on them by local authority under section 80 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990.
But there is the practical difficulty of catching a moving vehicle and showing that the noise, for the short duration it occurs in one place, constitutes a nuisance in law. One possibility is that a police or local authority officer be empowered to make a subjective "judgment of nuisance. They might then get the owner's details by the computer system and take action.
The prospect invoked palpitations among exhibitors at Birmingham's NEC, where the car modifications industry came together recently for the Max Power Live event, billed as the "fastest, loudest car show ever".
Ritchie's Dodge Challenger with its giant exterior speakers hoisted by hydraulics was a star of the show. He is part of Fuel, a company specialising in car modification and the accompanying lifestyle. Its slogan is Wake Up the Neighbourhood, Destroy the Street.
He has no time for those who want a quiet life, especially those in London.
"It's a noisy city anyway," the 38-year-old said. "In the suburbs there are not a lot of ways for people to move themselves up the pecking order. So they bling their cars, they pimp their rides. It's boys but also girls with their pink cars and massive sound systems. They're queens of the street."