UK government to trial noise cameras in England and Wales this summer

[MotoNews]

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The British government is going to trial noise cameras in several areas across the UK this summer to try to keep Britain's streets quieter.

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[Doctor T]

There has been two ive noticed already. They have been there for over a years now. These are sited just outside motorcycle cafe's. If you know the UK, one is outside Whiteways cafe in Sussex and the other is hidden by tree's by Rukkas in Dorking. These are well know bikers cafe's that are always busy. Most of the noise problem seems to be from 125cc bikes with the baffles removed fron their end cans. There is one asshole that rides past my house every night around midnight. Otherwise being a biker i like a bit of engine noise but there is a point where it is too loud.

Our so called leaders should think about making the roads safer and fill in the cracks and pot holes first.

[wbw6cos]

That technology is in use over here, but in the big cities it is used to triangulate gun shot sounds.  

 

It seems like the smaller the displacement, the more obnoxious the sound.   Plenty of Honda Civic type cars sounding too much like a hopped-up lawn mower.  

 

Around my house, my RT is the noisy culprit in the calm of early morning hours, but the factory muffler is all there is and it is not all that loud.   For the most part, the cars are causing the most noise.   They accelerate hard then back off to get the crack, crack, crack, pop, pop, pop, over and over and over.  Yikes!

 

Sometime last year, the county passed an ordinance to target loud exhausts and they said it would be enforced with dB meters in police cars.  Yeah, right.  They cannot even crack down on the street racing, where a bunch of cars take over an intersection drifting around in circles, spinning tires and smoking the whole place up so evrybody can film it for social media.  Although, a few weeks ago,  a big bust went down and they were able to catch over 80 people and impounded quite a few cars, but the noise is still there.

 

 

Think BIKE!!

[dirtrider]

1 hour ago, wbw6cos said:

 

Sometime last year, the county passed an ordinance to target loud exhausts and they said it would be enforced with dB meters in police cars.  Yeah, right.  They cannot even crack down on the street racing, where a bunch of cars take over an intersection drifting around in circles, spinning tires and smoking the whole place up so evrybody can film it for social media.  Although, a few weeks ago,  a big bust went down and they were able to catch over 80 people and impounded quite a few cars, but the noise is still there.

 

 

 

Afternoon William

 

I think California is about to try (test) this also by early 2023__     "California Plans a Pilot “Noise Camera” Program"

 

That sounds good on paper but is a nightmare to enforce with active street testing.

 

It's easy enough to triangulate a gunshot as they are just imputing a loud noise, it is more difficult to put a reliable (enforceable) DB number on that noise. 

 

There are many facets to reliable vehicle  DB testing, from distance to vehicle, to pick-up mike's distance above the ground, or in relation/angle to source sound,  to engine RPM of offending vehicle, to possible noise reflection from buildings, other vehicles, curbs, etc, to other noises, background noises,  or reflected noises in the testing area. 

 

Easy enough to generate a DB number, but much more difficult to make it stick in court without showing the noise was captured correctly.

 

One area they need to look into is that most newer vehicles have pretty intricate exhaust  emission devices like catalytic converters, a lot of compliant exhaust systems have stamped in part numbers or even emission compliance numbers & writing stamped on the exhaust. (the ones that don't should be required to have that info stamped in a prominent place to be sold in the U.S.

 

If they hear a loud vehicle they need to pull it over & do an emission compliance verification. (like does it have a stock catalytic converter and/or an emission compliant exhaust system). Much bigger fine (even possible impoundment) for tampering with federal emission systems. 

It would take some progressive thinking on this but could really work if they invest the time to catalog the exhaust components by vehicle VIN  therefore setting it up for easy enforcement. 

 

 

 

  

 

 

[wbw6cos]

Good afternoon dirtrider,

 

In the county which I reside, there is emissions testing.   Most of it is performed on modern vehicles with OBD plug-in capture.   It used to be, the tester would actually get down and take a look at the exhaust, with me not knowing if they were, in fact, confirming a catylic converter in place.   The last few times, they never looked.  I always wondered how those souped up tuner cars actually passed the emissions, but I am guessing if they changed the ECU tuning to get the performance they wanted,  then maybe they put back the OEM tune and run it like that prior to the testing.

 

The gun shot comment was, sort of, tounge in cheek.   They use the technology to find what part of town the shots orignated from and patrol accordingly.   It is doubtful, they use it for noise enforcement.  Stateside, there is dwindling numbers in law enforcement personnel, which translates to differences in call priority.

[Doctor T]

We have the same with boy racers doing donuts in places like McDonalds carparks. The are mostly in large numbers. A lot get fined and some cars get removed off the road. Filming for things for YouTube etc is a bit stupid as the Police over here have a section that just watch these videos all day.

As for fitting performance parts over here in the UK there is no problem. Most bike testing stations turn a blind eye to end cans and will only fail them if they are over noicey. Plus bikes dont have an emission test. On my Royal Himalayan i removed all the emission junk, fitted a power commander and a delvik exhaust system. Just out of interest i went to a Rolling road center and the results still put the emissions within the Euro 4 limit.