It’s bad enough when you’re waiting at a traffic signal and a vehicle pulls beside you with boom-box gear pounding loudly enough to irritate your ears and make your chest vibrate. Or when you’re sitting on the patio or porch, or even inside the house, and one of those rolling bass-bombs explodes down your street.

But at least there is relief when the vehicle fades into the distance. It’s not the same when inconsiderate people decide to blast amplified music or practice with their “bands” in a given neighborhood and seem oblivious to when enough is enough.

There seems to be an almost-religious obsession with loudness anymore. People – and they’re not always so young – get hypnotized by some kind of thunk-thunk-thunk, bump-bump-bump battering in their vehicles and don’t seem to care how it might affect others – or their own eardrums down the line.

Transfer all this amped-up noise to a residential setting with people playing, or playing at, various electronic thunder-makers and it certainly gets old, and aggravating, very fast. We’re not talking just about the people to the right, left or above and below, but sufferers three, four and five houses away.

Sure, people have a right to attempt to play music on their own territory, but when the sound spills – make that pours – out of into the neighborhood so that it bothers others, the line needs to be drawn.

It stands to reason some victims of these thoughtless assailants choose not to complain to authorities for fear of reprisal, either musical or physical. And certainly there is an increasing trend toward violent retribution for those simply seeking to be left alone. But people who are subjected to the nefarious activities of ear-bangers and head-splitters should complain, and authorities should take action to help them. If it takes a call to police or the filing of a complaint, that should be the course. Authorities should go out of their way to support and protect complainants.

Modern equipment makes it possible for many people who never dreamed they might enter the arena of performing arts to do just that, starting with karaoke and moving right on up the chain to basses, drums, guitars and anything else that can be used for “creativity.” Whatever happened to woodwinds and soft strings?

There has been a growing tendency in Lawrence in recent times for bands or other loud music outfits to assemble and mindlessly assault society, and that is wrong. Somebody ought to tell these people that there are knobs and digital run-ups that can lessen as well increase the volume of their out-of-control instruments.