Rajamahendravaram (Andhra Pradesh), (Samajweekly) Aimed at teaching a lesson to all the youngsters trying to impress college girls with amplified silencers fixed on their motorcycles, the traffic police in Rajamahendravaram in East Godavari district have started dismantling and crushing them under a road roller.
“We caught up to 50 loud motorcycles, dismantled their silencers and crushed them under a road roller,” the DSP (Traffic) of Rajamahendravaram, K.V.N. Varaprasad, told IANS on Thursday.
Varaprasad said that young boys were zipping on their loud motorbikes, especially in the presence of students from the women’s colleges, leading to sound pollution.
The DSP said that he himself is a direct sufferer of this loud silencer menace as he experiences it first hand as he stays near the Arts College and the SKVK College in the city.
“I have know how much people are suffering from this problem. That’s why we have initiated this silencer drive to remove the loud components from the motorcycles,” the senior police officer said.
Incidentally, the DGP’s office has supplied a digital noise level measuring instrument to the traffic police to thwart the sound polluters and identify the high decibel vehicles.
Motorcycles producing noise more than 80 decibels will be categorised as noise polluters, prompting the police to detach those components and destroy them right in front of the two-wheeler owners.
After silencing 50 violating motorcycles in the first drive on Wednesday, the police are planning to carry out the second drive next week.
“Anybody riding a two-wheeler which violates this rule will stopped, and the silencer will be dismantled and destroyed. A penalty of Rs 1,000 under the Motor Vehicle Act will also be slapped on the violator,” Varaprasad said.
For easier dismantling of the silencers, the police are keeping a motorcycle mechanic handy and forcing the violators to cough up his charges as well, which is Rs 50 per silencer.
The heavy road roller for crushing the silencers has been roped in with help of the municipal contractors. After finishing the crushing job, the police allowed the two-wheeler owners to go back and fix the company specified silencer.
In fact, there was a short spectacle in the middle of the road in the city on Wednesday afternoon when the police arranged the 50 silencers one beside the other and rolled the crusher, flattening all of them under its weight.
“We feel this kind of a drive is necessary as it will create fear in the minds of the violators and compel them not to create sound pollution,” he noted.
He also wished that at least the parents of these youngsters will warn their children to avoid such loud acts.
According to the officer, youngsters are mostly altering the silencers of 350 cc Bullets by drilling a small hole or employing other techniques, including a particular company which is selling noise amplifying components.
He said that according to the MV Act, two-wheelers and three-wheelers have a sound limit of 80 decibels, 82 decibels for passenger vehicles, 85 decibels for commercial vehicles and 89 decibels vehicles carrying more than four passengers.
Varaprasad clarified that no vehicle even on the highway can exceed 91 decibels of noise come what may.
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