Beware of hooting!

By Nilma Dole

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Very often, innocent pedestrians who are at the receiving end of bus drivers who purposely increase the pitch of their horns to intimidate and compete with others on the roads. Says one, who is employed in Fort, “I find it unbearably difficult to commute and concentrate at work because of the noise generated by buses on the streets as a result of fierce horning”.

More recently like some people protested about fuel prices by tooting their horns, noise pollution which is hazardous to health, is a common occurrence all over the city.

A proprietor of a garage in Colombo-8 said that they install and modify about 30 horns every month, with a ‘screaming’ horn costing around Rs. 300 and a modification of the pitch only at Rs. 100. “Modifying the pitch of the horn is a simple procedure which any mechanic can do it by turning off or modify by adjusting a screw, located at the horn’s base, at a particular position” he said.

His policy sometimes makes him to refuse to increase the pitch of the horns unless there is a valid reason attributed.

“We get bus drivers from rural areas who drive in places like Yala who need to modify their horns to scare away animals, being a matter of life and death” he explained. A mechanic from a garage in the Welikada area said that compared to the city garages, they get more clients with bizarre request because the Colombo garages follow certain principles and are reluctant for getting caught.

“We don’t agree to this but if a client is willing to pay then we usually think of our business and go ahead and forget about words.”, he compromised.

Article 126 (4) of the Constitution states that the noise emission by the use of amplifiers, loudspeakers or other equipment or appliances which causes annoyance to the public or to the people in general who dwell or occupy property in the vicinity will be considered a public nuisance in terms of Section 261 of the Penal Code and that the Police should entertain complaints and take appropriate action for the abatement of such public nuisances.

The legal representative of the police, Gamini Dissanayake said “Under Section 80 (1) of the Police Ordinance Act which was amended last year, implementation of these rules is ordered by the Supreme Court where the use of loudspeakers or other instruments for the amplification of noise is allowed only from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. unless special permits are given by us.”

Prof. Amal Kumarage, Chairman of the National Transport Commission explained his orders “from January this year. “We introduced the Motor Traffic Act where standards were enforced to reduce noise pollution in buses. We were assigned to test the noise level of bus silencers, noise inside the buses and the noise of the horn”.

He said that under the pilot project, they had tested 3000 SLTB buses and 15, 000 provincial ones that started in February and ended in March of this year and hope to check private buses as well.

While testing, they discovered that 48% of the buses tested were not complying with the regulations and so grace periods were given to them to rectify it. Prof. Kumarage said “From next year, we have proposed standards that are noise compliant and hope that noise pollution on the roads will be lesser in the country”.