Traffic noise limits ‘should be enforced’

Press, 8 July 1983, Page 4

Traffic noise limits ‘should be enforced’

Traffic officers should monitor and enforce levels of vehicle noise in a similar way to speed limit enforcement, the New Zealand Acoustic Society conference was told in Christchurch yesterday. Professor D. C. Stevenson, profesor of mechanical engineering at the University of Canterbury said that enforcement of vehicle noise limits was done in other countries.

He thought that up to 12 extra traffic officers would be needed in New Zealand to begin the patrols. One officer could use special equipment to measure the amount of noise each vehicle was making. A second officer would be stationed further along the road to stop any vehicles that were making an excessive noise.

Professor Stevenson, a vice-president of the society, told the conference

that New Zealand was lagging behind in efforts to limit the noise from new cars.

He said later that the Japanese were selling cars to New Zealand which made more noise than the Japanese were prepared to tolerate in their own country. In 1977, noise level limits for new cars were set. The limits were the first step of a programme to reduce traffic noise, recommended to the Minister of Health by his Noise Advisory Committee. Professor Stevenson was the committee’s chairman.

“We hoped by now to have gone into step two. The Ministry of Transport seems to have dropped all effort to work on a longterm plan to reduce traffic noise,” he said.

The second step would have introduced lower noise limits which are being used by E.E.C. countries.

It would take several years to notify car manufacturers and introduce the lower limits. Professor Stevenson was not aware of any move to bring the lower limits into force. Traffic noise was the most serious environmental noise problem, he said. Airports and discos were isolated problems compared with traffic noise which affected most people.

“People seem to accept and tolerate a lot of noise. Traffic noise has grown over the years and people have become used to it but it stops communication, interrupts conversation, and some peopk car- it

>omt iple cannot even hold a conversation in their back yard if they live by a busy road.” More than 80 members of the society are attending the conference, which opened at the University of Canterbury yesterday and will end today.