STREET NOISES

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22009, 16 January 1935, Page 8

STREET NOISES

It is time that stern and sustained action was taken to abate traffic noises. They have become an intolerable offence, especially at night on residential streets, and largely they are avoidable. Recently correspondents have drawn attention to the extra burden borne by the sick in the hospital from this cause. The vibration set up by lumbering heavy vehicles, the braying of horns, the squealing of brakes, the scream of straining tyres—all add their quota to the daylong bedlam and prolong it into what should be the sleeping hours of weary sufferers. These excoriations, bad as they are, are but incidentals to the main head of complaint against the staccato, inescapable report of open exhausts, punctuated by the shots of backfiring engines. It is not only the hospital, although that is the worst case. Dwellers on every main road have to endure disturbance, which ravages even the quiet hush of suburban backwaters. This devil's tattoo must be stopped. London has already shown the way and other English towns are conforming. Auckland must take effective steps in the same direction and should move immediately. The motor regulations provide that every motor vehicle shall be fitted with an efficient silencer. The provision is adequate. What is required is that national and local authorities should enforce it stringently. penalising all offenders. At present the latter sin with impunity ; they must be brought under discipline, made to realise that their conduct is antisocial, and the lesson driven home with deterrent penalties. By common consent the motorcyclist is arraigned as the chief destroyer of quiet, shrieking through the night with open exhaust. Exceptions are many, and include the wellmannered members of motor-cycle clubs, who are conscientious on this and other points of road conduct. But the irresponsibles, whether on two wheels or four, should be taught a sharp lesson. Too often their offence is aggravated by being deliberate. They remove the silencer or, with criminal simplicity, smash the baffles. The public has borne with this nuisance too long. Public authorities must end it. An organised and intensive campaign against street vandals should be launched at once and sustained until the quiet of night has been fully restored.