WAR AGAINST NOISE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20954, 18 August 1931, Page 9

WAR AGAINST NOISE.

* CAMPAIGN IN PARIS.

MANY MOTORISTS FINED.

A fresh effort is being made in Paris to reduce unnecessary noise. Chauffeurs have been warned, threatened, and even on occasions punished, for irritating the nerves of their fellow citizens; but so far the anti-noise campaign has not proved conspicuously effective. The trouble is acute at present since, owing to the summer heat, Parisians like to keep their windo,ws open. They have thus recently had to choose between earsplitting noises or the heat and semi-suffo-cation of closed windows.

The Society for the Suppression of Noises has prepared leaflets which are to be conspicuously posted air over the city. At the head of these, in big type, appears the words: "Parisians! Insist upon silence." Another part of the text points out that if a pedestrian were seen running along the pavement and shouting with all bis lung-power he would ud doubtedly be arrested. Why, then, the society asks, should motorists f*njoy different treatment ?

It is true that many motorists have already been fined for making unnecessary use of their warning signals; but, as a police authority pointed out in a recent interview, the education of road-users is still far from complete. It is to be completed now by more liberal doses of punishment.