Noisy Motor Horns.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 659, 12 January 1933, Page 8

Noisy Motor Horns.

Dear Sir,—One of the old by-laws of the Christchurch City Council, now almost lost in the rush of this modern civilisation, forbade the blowing of horns in the streets. The city fathers who framed that law did not have in mind motor-car horns, but if they had lived to-day they would not have been as backward as our present civic authorities in passing a by-law which would forbid absolutely the honking of horns except in traffic. At present the position, to say the least, is disgraceful. People draw up their cars outside shops in the city, my own included, and make a hideous din merely to attract the attention of their friends who may be passing by. As a result business is disorganised and more noise is added to the din which makes our city one of the noisiest in the Dominion. On several occasions my assistants have rushed out from the shop thinking that an accident had occurred. The shop keepers in our street have two radios, and three street musicians to make their life a misery, and it is bad enough at present without adding honking horns to the general din. The position is just as bad in the suburb in which I live. My neighbours hold parties and all their' visitors seem to think that they can show their contempt for the rest of the street by playing a vigorous tune on their horns and waking everyone for several blocks down the street. The only way to get a by-law passed appears to be to have half-a-dozen cars play tunes outside the residences of our City Councillors at two o’clock in the morning.— I am, etc., NO HOOTING.