MUCH TOO NOISY

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 91, 11 January 1935, Page 10

MUCH TOO NOISY

Wellington’s Streets MOVE FOR QUIETER TRAFFIC What Britain Is Doing “Your streets are much too noisy. . . . Not only do your tramcars make too much noise—some cars appear to be noisier than others—-but you are tolerating noises from old engines, gear-changing, motor-cycle exhausts, and other sources against which the whole world is beginning to move.” This voice of authority was that ot Sir Henry Fowler, K.8.E.. of Spondon Hall, near Derby, England, late chief mechanical engineer of the London, Midland, and Scottish Railway Company, president of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers, of England, and a member of the Anti-Noise Committee .of the British Transport Board, the head of which is Mr. L. Hore-Belisha. Sir Henry said that Mr. Hore-Belisha was a very active and purposeful personality, who had already done manv things most people imagined could not be done.

Sir Henry referred, of course, to th* checking of the noise nuisance in London and some of the other large centres at Home, during certain hours of the night, when people were entitled to a little quiet. Something had been done as a start, but much remained to be done. Toward that end all manner of observations and tests were being

made in various centres, while there had been set up a complete acoustics laboratory, where skilled men were finding out much about noise creation, and how -it could be lessened if act eliminated.

In referring to the noise-cheeking edict which had been put into force in respect to certain areas around Charing Cross and Piccadilly, Sir Henry said that it was pretty generally admitted that in regard to horn-tooting by motorists and taxi-drivers, the greater part of it could be done away with altogether.

“Not so long ago I motored tbrougn some half-dozen large towns, including Derby, twice in the one. day without once having sounded in? horn.” said Sir Henry. “This slowed me down a little in some places. I admit, but on the whole the difference in time as compared with what I could have accomplished the same journey 'in while using the horn was inconsiderable. This was my own way of testing out the motor-horn problem. It certainty showed me that I had used the hern unnecessarily a good deal in the past. “What Mr. Hore-Belisha has already done has had a distinct effect on London. People have been made noiseconscious, and many of the bestintentioned people are endeavouring to help the Transport Board to side-step a great deal of the row in London’s busy streets. It is this movement in. London which has also been taken up in Germany and America. They know very well that there is far too much noise in every city and town, and far too many cases of people breaking down through nervous prostration through causes of which they are, generally speaking, unaware, and which may be the incessant noise of this work-a-day world of ours.”

“I am a magistrate in Derby,” said Sir Henry, ‘‘and cases come before me sometimes where people have been injured through not having heard the approaching danger. Sometimes this is caused by lorries with old engines, the sort that make a terrific noise ■when starting up and not much less when they are going all out. On one such occasion recently a fellowmagistrate whispered to me that it was a pity they had not the power to order such lorries oft' the road. That is only stated to show the trend of thought in respect to street noise. The public are getting conscious of the increasing clamour of some kinds of motor traffic, and arc now inclined to agree to measures of suppression since the matter has been given publicity.” Sir Henry thought some of the Sydney streets extremely noisy, particularly that lower end of Pitt Streetwhich Sydney newspapers termed ‘•Heli’s Mile.” That, was caused by the fact that the street .was narrow and the buildings on either side were rather higlfi That created a natural sound-box which emphasised the racket of the traincars and the motor traffic.

Sir Henry mentioned that good, supporting work was being done in England by the Anti-Noise League, the chairman of which was Lord Horder. He himself had been a frequent speaker ou the subject of street noises and their suppression at rotary clubs all over England, but had not spoken in public since his illness, and had no desire to do so in New Zealand.