Clamp down hard on noise pollution!

Apparently, the meaningless and deafening tooting of horns by some of our motorists has emerged as one of the latest forms of highway rowdyism or terrorism in this country. It is high time the authorities addressed this latest mental aberration among the more irritable and intolerant of our motorists and we gladly welcome moves by the authorities to contain the malaise.

Noise pollution has added itself to the long list of pollutants that is making life impossible for the law-abiding but largely silent public. The state of a nation, we believe, could be assessed, among other things, by the way its citizenry conducts itself on its highways, and this leaves very much to be desired in the case of Sri Lanka. We would not be exaggerating by saying that the conduct of some of our motorists approaches that of psychopaths who have been let lose on the public. It is the duty of the state to ensure that the ordinary citizenry is spared such terrors.

As one of our front page news reports indicated yesterday, the Central Environmental Authority is in the forefront of efforts to see an end to the sound pollution blight. Apparently, a sound containment regime of some sort is taking shape and the sound levels permitted to motorists for specific distances are being indicated. While all this is fine and should be welcomed, we call on the authorities to ensure that the law is firmly and impartially enforced for the purpose of making the exercise meaningful.

CEA officials are not mincing their words on this source of terror. ‘Motor vehicles are the leading noise polluter’, they are on record as saying and coming from the CEA, no one could in any way doubt the veracity of this statement. The public would whole-heatedly agree with this statement because of the mounting dangers that highway travel confronts them with. The noise menace only compounds their highway torments because it is quite well known that they could no longer take it for granted that they would return home alive once they set off from home each day; highway indiscipline has taken on such maniacal proportions.

The CEA’s intentions on the matter of sound pollution are, of course, good, but they need to think about how they would be going about implementing their regime, given the chaotic conditions on our highways. We hope the numerous practical details with regard to implementation are being closely looked at. Nevertheless, we believe the CEA is doing well to confront this issue of shrilly mounting sound pollution.

We are of the view that ‘the nut behind the wheel’, is chief among the factors which are making our highways impossible almost to travel on. There is, of course, a rising number of fatal accidents we are being increasingly called on to contend with and there is no doubt that the callous disregard for human life among many motorists is contributing significantly to this tragic state.

True, a closer monitoring of our roads by the Police and stricter enforcement of the law would help in improving the situation. But, there is also no doubt that highway thuggery and haughtiness on the part of some drivers of vehicles are adding to the dangerousness of our roads.

The vehicles to be watched are those huge, unwieldy ones which are owned apparently by those who believe they could throw their weight around with impunity. This sense of self-importance and puffed-up arrogance tend to infect the drivers of these vehicles as well and it is only a short step from this vainglorious pride to careless and dangerously irresponsible driving which claims lives on our roads. Therefore, a state of mental imbalance is chief among the factors that generate our highway worries and traumas.

This is the reason why we were prompted to mention earlier that the state of a nation is reflected in the state of its roads. If sadism and savagery prevail in our homes, villages and towns, nothing could prevent this from seeping into our roads. It is this very arrogance and morbid sense of self-importance which makes the driver of a vehicle shrilly toot his horn and terrorize his fellow citizens. Thus, it could be seen that something would need to be done about the emotional state of some of our ‘nuts behind the wheel.’