PROBLEM OF TRAFFIC.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20324, 3 August 1929, Page 13

PROBLEM OF TRAFFIC.

NOISY MOTOR-CARS.

PROHIBITIVE REGULATION.

EFFECTIVE IN ENGLAND

(Received August 2. C.25 p.m.) British Wirelyss. RUGBY. Aug. 1. An order made by Uio Minister of Transport, Mr. Herbert Morrison, prominting excessive noises from motor-cars will come into force to-day. Owner.* cf motor cars may be prose cuted foi having insufficient silencers, screeching brakes, rat( ling gear-boxes or cxccssivel loud horns.

The new regulations referred to in the cablegram make it an offence for any person to use a motor-car which causes excessive noise as the result ol any defect in design or construction, or lack of repair or faulty design. This regulation, said a writer in the Sunday 'I imes recently, if rigidly construed, may have tho effect of stopping a good deal of unnecessary noise. Take, for example, the con trast between a first-class private motor and tho average London omnibus. Tho expensive private car moves along in almost complete silence; tho motor-omni-bus generally makes, whether going fast nr slow, a hideous din. If the authorities were to insist that all motor-omnibuses must have smooth-working machinery there would be an immense reduction in the noise from which London suffers. But will (he authorities go as far as this? As a matter of fact, an enormous number of private cars also have noisy machinery, and motor-cycles are notoriously among the worst offenders in the matter of road noises. As regards the motor-cycles there is already a regulation forbidding the use of engines which are. not fitted with silencers, but as far as can be gathered this regulation is enforced in very few places. Another important point is the noise made by hooters. As regards this point the Ministry of Transport is apparently afraid to impose any definite new regulations. Yet it is notorious that a good many motors and motor-cycles are fitted with unnecessarily strident hooters, which are used by tho drivers with quite unnecessary frequency. Courteous motorists take pains to get a pleasant-toned hooter and use it as little as possible, avoiding accident not by making a noise but by slowing down to avoid risk. That hooting, however loud, does not prevent accidents is proved by the enormous increase in the yearly number of accidents recorded

Taking London alone striking figures are given in the recently published Statistical Abstract for London, issued by tho London County Council, covering the years 1918 to 1927. In that brief period the number of persons killed and injured in the London streets increased rapidly year by year In 1918 the number killed and injured was 15,703; in 1927 it was 49,105, of whom 1056 were killed. If wo am to stop this mutilation and slaughter of human beings, as well as to stop noise, something more is needed than the timid regulations issued by the Ministry of Transport. Tho truth of the matter is that our successive Governments since motor traffic was introduced have failed to deal with the now problems created. Horso traffic, though noisy enough on stone-paved streets, was, at any rato, limited in speed and weight. Modern motor traffic is limited in neither, and not only arc people disturbed night and day by' the noise of the traffic, but also many buildings are being seriously damaged by the vibration created when heavy lorries rush past at high speed. There is also the particular evil of motor noises late at night. In London and other large towns, in tho dead of night, in streets that are otherwiso quiet, one intermittently hears a motorist going by and loudly sounding his horn, although there is practically no other traffic at the time.. The explanation is that instead of having the courtesy to slow down as he ncars a road junction he makes this hideous noise on the off-cfianco that someone might be crowing his path. This practice ought certainly to be absolutely prohibited, especially in tho neighbourhood of hospitals and nursing homes. The public suffers from many other quite needless and offensive noises. Among them may he mentioned tho practice of bovs selling newspapers or cigarettes on railway platforms, who yell at the top of their voices in tho belief that they will attract customers. Paris is pandemonium in comparison even with the London of to-day, and tho French Prefect of Polico has recently announced that he intends to take measures to make Paris a quieter city. Berlin is also discovering the need for quietude. The traffic regulations issued in that city at the beginning of the present year deal drastically with the problems of modern traffic.