SHE SAYS ...

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33928, 22 August 1975, Page 11

SHE SAYS ...

1 know it’s often said that women are much more sensitive to noise than men — and I think you can see this difference in action in most homes, where the husband keeps turning the hi-fi or the television sound up, and the women keep turning it down again. Whether it’s true or not, I’m in full sympathy with the anti-noise campaigners, expecially when it comes to motor vehicles.

We’ve got to put up with a certain amount of noise in our lives, to be sure; but the racket that some vehicles put out — quite unnecessarily, too — just isn’t funny. How the shop assistants in some of our main streets manage to put up with it, I’ll never know. Maybe you get used to it in time, but it still can’t do much for the inner tranquility. I’ve two pet hates

where vehicle noise is concerned: heavy trucks and motor-cycles. Neither of them have to be very noisy, it’s usually a combination of neglected maintenance and the way they’re driven, or ridden. The heavy, rumbling, shattering roar of some big trucks is particularly disturbing to those on the pavement and in nearby shops, and the row from some fast-accelerating motor-bikes can just about cause genuine pain. ■

There was quite a lot of< publicity a while ago about’ a Ministry of Transport campaign against noisy ve-| hides. I’m told that lots of J tickets were issued, andi that the number of noisy] vehicles about the city] dropped quite markedly fori a while. But if the last few’ trips into the city I’ve ] made are any indication — i let alone the row that' echoes across the suburbs] now and then — the re-i suits of the campaign must 1 be wearing off pretty fast,; if they haven’t already worn off completely. 1 Most vehicles are really l fairly quiet when they; leave the factory, and almost any vehicle can be driven reasonably quietly. It’s thoughtlessness that’s at the bottom of the trouble more than anything. A very annoying sort of thoughtlessness.

All overdrive Overdrive is now standard on all MGB and MGB GT models, it has been announced in Britain. Overdrive sales have risen sharply since fuel prices went up.