Let’s make noises about noise

Yes, why shouldn’t we start doing that right away? Whoever said that “without sound, life is difficult to navigate, but with noise, it becomes unbearable” was surely not talking through his hat. Shoulders to the wheel, mes citoyens, because this country of ours is fast becoming an unnerving cacophony of unwanted sound!

Sound levels are expressed in decibels (dB) on a logarithmic scale, with 0dB nominally setting the “threshold of hearing” whereas 120dB nominally represents the “threshold of pain”. As I argue below, the regular yet distasteful bombardment by salvoes of shudderingly pointless traffic noises that is lobbed at us with ever-increasing force every day is converting us more restrained victims into quivering spectators.

Ponder on: the indiscriminate horn parping – “Hi guys, this is my new honker – hope you like it” or “just to let you know I’m outside your door, love”;

the full throttle acceleration of vehicles snarling up from low speed in a low gear into a screaming whoosh of speeding automobiles. Witness the dragsters trying out their shiny machines on any sunny Sunday afternoon in roads where the prudent – and the more fearful – drivers hug the inside lanes to give free passage to the road devils;

the irresponsible revving of car or motor-bike engines, embarrassing even jet airliner pilots with the high pitches coming out of their nefariously fitted exhaust pipes, so facetiously labelled “” (sic) and

the uncontrolled blaring of car stereos and MP3 players as thumping musical tsunamis flood the ear drums of blissful passers-by.

In a study published some months ago, 79 per cent of people living in Malta reported feeling annoyed by noise, with most respondents stating to be particularly irritated by road traffic noise. Yet, did anyone give – always pardoning the unavoidable pun – any hoot that a full 95 per cent of the people surveyed then believed that not enough was being done to make Malta quieter? Was society aroused at all when the health hazards of excessive road noise and the dangers of continued exposure to unwarranted traffic noise levels were clearly highlighted? Have guilty consciences given the wrongdoers – and the law-enforcers who indifferently turned a Nelson’s eye – any sleepless nights?

Because, to make matters worse for all law-abiding citizens, the long and the short of this story is that excessive traffic noise is in constant breach of our laws:

“No person shall make, cause or permit to be made any unnecessary noise with the motor vehicle horn or with any other warning device” – Motor Vehicle Regulation 96 (2).

“Any police officer or local warden may prohibit the use of any horn or other warning device which appears to be strident or otherwise objectionable. No pneumatic horn (other than an ordinary hand-pressed bulb horn) and no motor-driven horn shall be used on any motor vehicle” – Motor Vehicle Regulation 96 (3).

“No person shall drive a motor vehicle unless it is provided with an efficient silencer affixed to the exhaust pipe of such motor vehicle in such a manner that the exhaust shall be projected through the silencer…” – Motor Vehicle Regulation 106.

“No driver shall operate, or cause, or permit to be operated any radio, tape recorder, record placer or similar apparatus on or in any motor vehicle in a way that it may hinder or is likely to hinder that driver from hearing properly or which may cause annoyance to passengers in the vehicle or other people in any inhabited place” – Motor Vehicle Regulation 116.

Besides these dogmatic edicts, so systematically flouted by the law snubbers in our streets, there are other precepts that will be eventually introduced. Local authorities are said to be compiling strategic noise maps, gauging ambient noise in key locations around the Maltese islands, in response to European Union requirements.

EU noise directives in fact already exist, defining a common approach to avoid, prevent or reduce the harmful effects of noise on human health, which include annoyance and sleep disturbance, distraction, speech interference, physiological effects and stress reactions due to exposure to environmental noise, the latter being the unwanted or harmful outdoor sound caused by human activities, including noise emitted by means of transport, road traffic, rail traffic, air traffic and from sites of industrial activity.

It would be however farcical, to say the least, were all extremely well-intentioned European requisites to be transposed into local legislation without the present infrastructure being first made fully compliant with our own legislative obligations. Failing to do this, in fact, would be tantamount to dolling up one’s face before taking a shower.

In keeping with the acoustic style of this article, let me end not with a bang but with a whimper: May the reader, like me, enthuse about the need to clean up our act and may we therefore louden our noises about muzzling for good unnecessary traffic noise in Malta.