Noisy Motor-Vehicles

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31223, 22 November 1966, Page 16

Noisy Motor-Vehicles

Sir, —Is it permissible for motor-cars and motor-cycles to be operated with open exhausts? Is it permissible for motor-cycles to be fitted with adjustable silencers? By that I mean that the machine can be quite silent or else it can make a noise like a machinegun. If the answer is “no,” then why are warrants issued to these vehicles? Not long ago the Minister, when this question of noise was brought to his notice, said that we were waiting to see what England did about t. Again, why? Surely we can do something off our own bat. I suggest that the Minister of Transport takes some action before he hands over his seals of office. Either the regulations are weak or else the enforcement of them is inefficient. Which is it?— Yours, etc., KATHLEEN MAVOURNEEN,

November 8, 1966. [The district officer of the Transport Department (Mr D. L. Hogan) replies: “It is an offence under the Traffic Regulations to operate any motor vehicle without an effective silencer. The regulations also make it an offence to fit an adjustor or a cutout on a motor-cycle exhaust system. The silencer is one of the items included in a warrant-of-fitness inspection for a motor-cycle, but not for other vehicles. The question of including it in the inspection of other motor vehicles has been fully considered by the New Zealand Road Safety Council, which decided against it on the ground that it was a matter of enforcement rather than vehicle inspection. Last year the Transport Department obtained 1019 convictions against persons operating noisy vehicles.”]