Cops Nail Bus Drivers Honking Shrill Horns

Cops Nail Bus Drivers Honking Shrill Horns

Mangaluru: One thing about our local bus drivers is that they have no shame, even after they have been fined by the traffic cops for using loud horns, they still repeat the same offence. The increasing number of traffic violations has sent the cops on an overdrive as they penalized more than 200 drivers during the busy evening rush hours for honking and using loud horns-thereby raking in big bucks in fines. The traffic cops also slapped fines on conductors for not wearing uniforms, and also drivers for not stopping at the designated bus stops. The cops didn’t heed to any excuses put forth to them by the bus drivers or conductors, instead coolly punched in the license plate numbers on their Blackberry’s and issued them the Rs 100 violation ticket popped out from the hand device.

Traffic constables along with Traffic circle inspectors checked horn volumes of buses near Light House Hill Road, Kankanady Pumpwell Circle and Kottara Junction in the city. Owners of vehicles found exceeding the permissible sound levels were told to pay fine, and in exceptional cases, their horns were removed. Cops said the larger objective of the drive is to check noise pollution. Speaking to Team Mangalorean, Traffic Circle Inspector – Bunder Police Station, Mohan said, “lately we have been receiving complaints from the educational institutions, hospitals, religious places and citizens about loud honking by the bus drivers. Normally drivers don’t honk at intersections, especially when they see a traffic cop. As a result, we are forced to do surprise checks and stop vehicles, take them to the side of the road, test their horns and then take action. It is a laborious and time-consuming task and so is the new initiative we have launched against these shrill horns used by these buses. We will continue our drive until the bus owners/drivers remove these loud horns.

Harsh and (sometimes) impractical it may be, but the only way out is to ban horns completely in busy urban areas. The sort of proposed policing is practically impossible. Who decides acceptable tones, loudness levels etc., and how to ensure our ingenious population doesn’t come up with workarounds? When a hundred people are honking away in maddening traffic, it doesn’t serve any purpose anyway as nobody can make out who’s honking at whom. If someone won’t move when he sees you in his SUV, fat chance he will when you honk at him. In today’s crackdown on loud horns, the cops didn’t remove any loud horns instead fined the driver Rs 100 for using it. Each bus found to be using horns with a frequency above 75 decibels were fined. The police inspected the frequency of the horn sounds using a sound level meter.

While complimenting the traffic cops for a job well done, and urging them to do similar checks every other day, only then we can bring the noise pollution of this shrill down. Already each one is under terrible stress driving and riding and walking in Mangaluru roads. We hear frequent shrill or musical horns mostly from these private buses, and they also use it in silent zones and even midnight. Hearing those horns many have experienced severe heart beats due to sudden high decibel noise exposure. This already creates serious mental and physical disturbance on the human population. So shrill horns should be totally banned and severe fines and punishment to be given to drivers who use them.

Mangaluru Traffic Police awake ….arise! Bring peace to Mangalureans.