NEEDLESS NOISES

Waikato Times, Volume 125, Issue 20953, 4 November 1939, Page 13 (Supplement)

NEEDLESS NOISES

Elimination Campaign :: Success In New York

(E. C, New york is becoming less noisy. Ernest H. Peabody, head of the League for Less Noise, is sure this is so; though sometimes he is inclined to agree with friends who tell him he is engaged upon a Don Quixote task that can never be finished. At such times he recalls that it was only a few years ago that the now all but silent turnstiles in the subways made a shattering racket. Wheezy hand organs and tinny street pianos have been banished. Hundreds of street cars that formerly rattled up and down Madison, Sixth and Eighth Avenues have been supplanted by nearly noiseless buses. The Sixth Avenue Elevated Railway structure has been removed, and with it went the noisest spot in Manhatan, the corner of Sixth Avenue and Thirty-third Street, where the sound level attained to 103 decibels on occasion only last year. A riveting machine produces a 97 decibel din, while a lion’s roar is a mere 87. A cat’s purring registers 25. Mr Peabody gives to his campaign for less noise what time he can spare—and some that he cannot—from his engineering business. There is nothing odd about him, as might be suspected by persons who are blissfully Insensitive to the Modern Dins, most of them unnecessary, that assail the ear in any modern city. Mr Peabody can laugh over incidents in the struggle that he is carrying on against the noise monster with the aid of some 600 members of the League for Less Noise- The League is incorporated under State laws, is supported entirely by voluntary subscription. It has no commercial connection, is not financially interested in the sale of any equipment, and has for its its sole objective the control of unnecessary noise. One of the happiest results of Mr Peabody’s campaign has been the readiness of the police department to do something about superfluous sound effects in New York. The annual report of Lewis J. Valentine, police commissioner, for 1937, contains a chapter entitled “Unnecessary Noise” which explains that “the campaign of education in the form of warnings, to reduce needless noises was continued during the year.” Warnings were issued to 167,069 operators of automobiles and to 33,230 owners of radios, which were followed by 9822 arrests and summonses for the first class of offenders and 386 for the second class.. Other needless noise offences were classi-* fied as peddler, loud and boisterous, horns, animals, worn-out machinery, roller skating, games, taxicabs, delivery of milk, bicycle siren, miscellaneous, with a grand total of 292,572 warnings. There was an increase in 1938 over 1937 of 32 per cent in the warnings and a 49 per cent increase in summonses and arrests. Mr Peabody has given much attention to auto horns, believing that they Need Not Utter Harsh Squawks in order to serve their purpose of giving necessary warning signals. He did jury service for the police department once when a fleet of taxicabs came out with a particularly obnoxious horn. Mr Peabody was chosen foreman of this jury, which agreed after an hour’s argument that the horn’s sound as modified with a stuffing of mineral wool, would serve its purpose. All the horns were similarly stuffed, but as time went on the horns reverted to their original barbaric yawps. He has also served as consultant on a new series of auto signals manufactured by one company and reports that the chosen horn’s sound is agreeable, striking its high note at 30 miles an hour, and diminishing in intensity as the automobile slows down. This experiment has not* reached a decisive stage for the reason that at times, as when slowing down behind a load of hay on a country road, it is not possible to sound the horn loud enough to attract the attention of the driver. However, it is believed that a line of development is indicated by this experiment. There is even hope for a horn that will be silent when the car is not in motion. The League for Less Noise performs a practical service in New York by trying to do something about the complaints that come in by mail to its office at 580 Fifth

1. Sherburne.) Avenue. In directing such work Mr Peabody’s geniality is of the greatest help. He finds ways of approaching people wbe create disturbances without being aware of it, affecting people who are too timid to do anything about it themselves. A Federal law making motor mufflers standard equipment, subject to inspection like other equipment, is the only thing that will bring about the silencing of noisy boats, Mr Peabody says. Henry R. Sutphen, president of the National Association of Engine and Boat Manufacturers, Inc., sent a letter of commendation to the League for its efforts to extend the use of motor-boat mufflers, and the League sent his message to the commodores of 600 yacht clubs in the United States. A number of these responded sympathetically. The chief difficulty over these mufflers where they are usually most annoying on inland water i» that they come then under State motor-boat laws, which are too seldom enforced. Needless Noise Elimination Has a Commercial Value, too, and has been proved in the reduction of clerical errors in establishments that have been fitted with sound absorbing ceilings. Among the needless noises that persist in isolated spots where something might be done by means of complaints to the police are whistling peanut roasters, raucus radios at shop entrances, distorted noises from loud speakers roaming the streets in the interests of politicians, clanking milk bottles at 4 a.m., excessive factory whistling to summon employees. Mr Peabody would like to have New York emulate London, which found that it could do without auto horn noises from 11.30 p.m. to 7.30 a.m. within a five-mile area around Charing Cross. The League for Less Noise was organised in 1935 and attracted a good deal of attention at first. Mr Peabody found that all the responsibility reverted to him as the prime mover. At first he tried to handle the correspondence and telephoned complaints himself, aided by employees of his company, the Peabody Engineering Corporation. He even hired a special secretary and put in a telephone, both at his own expense. Within a fortnight he had three more full-time assistants and another telephone. This lasted until January, 1936, when he declined to spend any more money. He simply neglected the complaint. Now that the letters do not come in so fast, he is able to handle them with the aid of a secretary employed by his company. As far back as 1930, under Police Commissioner Mulrooney, there was a useful police drive against needless motor car noises. Automobiles are far less noisy today than then, with drivers educated by better equipment to a distaste for even small rattling sounds. However, thousands of drivers are still offenders against the public welfare in using their horns at unreasonable times, tooting raucously when the car in front does not start instantly when the traffic lights change. Then there is the Lochinvar who, keeping a date with commendable promptness, causes his auto horn to utter loud summoning squawks beneath his lady’s window. As a means of Educating These Unthinkable Offenders, the League for Less Noise some months ago tried a special campaign with the assistance of the New York police, who took over 100,000 green slips, printed by the League, to be handed out to motorists who sound their horns needlessly. The slips read: “Please help Mayor La Guardis make New York City a safer, quieter and pleasanter place in which to live, to do business and to visit. It is illegal to sound an automobile horn here, except as a danger signal after or as brakes are being applied. Besides, unnecessary noise does not get you anywhere. If your car has brakes, a little patience and courtesy will make the horn unnecessary.” The policemen handed out these slips as needed, and some benefits resulted, Mr Peabody believes, in making motorists aware of the senselessness of the racket that many of them make. For this is a campaign to increase neighbourly consideration for the benefit of aIL