Noise; final report : Presented to the Parliament ... July 1963.
- Great Britain. Committee on the Problem of Noise
- Date:
- [1963]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Noise; final report : Presented to the Parliament ... July 1963. Source: Wellcome Collection.
65/256 page 51
![NEW VEHICLES 189. Bearing in mind the considerations of paragraphs 171-185, we there- fore recommend that legislation should be introduced to provide that, after one year from the date of enactment, all new vehicles should be so designed and constructed that, when using the test procedure set out in BS 3425: 1961, the following noise levels shall not be exceeded :— All vehicles excepting motor cycles and other mechanically propelled two wheeled vehicles 85 dBA Motor cycles and other mechanically propelled 3 two wheeled vehicles ... a ay a 90 dBA These levels should apply to all vehicles which are licensed to travel on the road, except for those special types, such as fighting vehicles, for which the Minister of Transport may grant exemption, as he does from the existing regulations. 190. These values are significantly higher than those which would be fixed purely on the basis of “acceptability” for the average listener and the average vehicle (paragraph 180). The choice of limits at any level is, however, necessarily a compromise between what is desired by the public and what is technically possible, at a reasonable cost, at any point of time. We consider that the levels which we propose are the lowest that can be recommended at the present time, (a) without penalising certain types of vehicle through the deficiencies of the available measuring instruments (paragraphs 178 and 179); and (4) to fit in with what is immediately tech- nically possible for new vehicles (paragraphs 182 and 183). We emphasize that the levels refer to the maximum noise which a vehicle can normally make ; and in ordinary road conditions, the vehicle, properly driven, should seldom make this noise. 191. Most people have a fairly clear idea in their mind of what is a “quiet” and what is a “noisy” vehicle; and the limits suggested in para- graph 189 can be considered in their right perspective by comparison with the following figures obtained for particular vehicles in the MIRA tests : — Luxury limousine ny sp at a 77 dBA Small passenger car... Bio py i PON Miniature passenger car ate cm ie 84, SPOLIS Car ue. (ye a um & Os a I id Motor cycle 2 cylinder 4 stroke bey ues O4e m5 Motor scooter 1 cylinder 2 stroke ... bts Boye; 192. Special comment is needed on the apparently more favourable treat- ment suggested for motor-cycles—regarded. by some as the prime cause of noise nuisance; no favour has, in fact, been shown. We choose the higher figure because of (a) the consistently higher reading on the sound level meter (about 3 dBA) given by motor-cycles as compared with four- wheeled vehicles which were judged equally noisy and (b) the bigger scatter of results in the motor-cycle measurements [in the 1959 experiments, for example, (ref. 1) a total variation of 15 dB was needed to cover all motor cycles of the same loudness, compared with 9 dB for private cars and commercial vehicles]. In other words, the 5 dBA difference we suggest is due to the defects of the only kind of meter which is available at present. SI](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b32177756_0065.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
