DfT Trial to Ban ‘Noisy Engines’

912Matt said:

DfT announce new trial to banish loud engine and exhausts | RAC Drive

DfT has revealed a new trial of noise cameras to help provide evidence to police to take actions against drivers with loud engines and exhausts.

www.rac.co.uk

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More pushing us into EVs

Wow they're trying REALLY hard not to say what they're actually targeting. I mean tying themselves in knots to be circumspect with the language.



I mean let's be honest. This initiative isn't about groups of grannies in Salisbury or Grantham shaking their canes at "boy racers" keeping them up at night. This is more likely a concern that (white, English) Londoners in particular have expressed about certain immigrant communities in places like Knightsbridge, Kensington, Richmond, Wembley/Harrow, etc who have an affinity for displaying wealth or prestige via supercar or hypercar ownership. The complaint is about the "noise" (and they may have a limited point about it), but the unspoken objection is typically about race, culture, class, and community access.

Never rule out the allure of fees and fines that such cameras will allow jurisdictions to start gathering. There's nothing politicians love more than being able to come up with a new way to take money from the citizenry, and it's always wrapped in the shiny paper and ribbons of righteousness and justice!

Here in the states various cities spent a boatload installing speed cameras at intersections that would automatically take the picture of anyone speeding through an intersection, and included a snapshot of their license plate. They would automatically be fined. It was heralded as a noble way to prevent accidents, and to ensure the health, safety and well-being of all! So what happened? People started either stopping as they should instead of running the light, or they avoided those intersections altogether.

Apparently there was a monthly fee for the operation, maintenance and operation of the cameras, and they realized that because people were complying with the law, they were now losing money, so they discontinued the cameras. So much for the noble crusade for health, safety and well-being. It was about the money all along; usually is.

A little bit of paint and a camera is rendered useless…..

Porter said:

Wow they're trying REALLY hard not to say what they're actually targeting. I mean tying themselves in knots to be circumspect with the language.

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I mean let's be honest. This initiative isn't about groups of grannies in Salisbury or Grantham shaking their canes at "boy racers" keeping them up at night. This is more likely a concern that (white, English) Londoners in particular have expressed about certain immigrant communities in places like Knightsbridge, Kensington, Richmond, Wembley/Harrow, etc who have an affinity for displaying wealth or prestige via supercar or hypercar ownership. The complaint is about the "noise" (and they may have a limited point about it), but the unspoken objection is typically about race, culture, class, and community access.

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I'm sorry, this is not the forum for this, but I can not let this pass...
This is not a 'race' issue! It is infuriating (to me anyway) that so many people seem to want to take any argument possible in to the 'race' forum. So if you are white and British and complain about something that somebody of another race is doing, it straight away becomes a race issue and the complainant is labelled a racist! Maybe they just don't like what the person is doing because of the action, not because of their race.
You're welcome to retort (as is you're right), and I will let you have the last word as I don't want to divert this thread. But I just couldn't let this pass.

First Lotus said:

I'm sorry, this is not the forum for this, but I can not let this pass...
This is not a 'race' issue!

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Indeed, nothing to do with race. It's mostly about people who rip the perfectly functional exhaust off their car and replace it with straight-through unsilenced pipes, remap to fuel on the overrun and then dick about around town. Supercars & hypercars all achieve type approval or IVA (in the UK), and hence have been proven to meet the same noise limits that they'll be testing against and are not the target here. It's aftermarket modification they're looking for.

I suspect its behavior they are targeting rather than modifications, but currently they have no objective measure of it. Even with approved setup, revving 12 cylinders at unsociable hours is what the text seems to be getting at. This has long been a complaint in wealthy areas in London.

London, of course is a playground of the rich and that includes their cars - residents complain, but that wealth (a lot of it dirty money) was invited into the city in exchange for citizenship and other benefits. It has caused property prices to skyrocket - and of course house owning residents have been a major beneficiaries, pocketing millions as a result. So it's a complex picture, but for sure the losers are not the rich residents that have to put up with the noise. The losers are the likes of Grenfield tower residents and others priced out of the city.

frazzer said:

I suspect its behavior they are targeting rather than modifications, but currently they have no objective measure of it. Even with approved setup, revving 12 cylinders at unsociable hours is what the text seems to be getting at. This has long been a complaint in wealthy areas in London.

London, of course is a playground of the rich and that includes their cars - residents complain, but that wealth (a lot of it dirty money) was invited into the city in exchange for citizenship and other benefits. It has caused property prices to skyrocket - and of course house owning residents have been a major beneficiaries, pocketing millions as a result. So it's a complex picture, but for sure the losers are not the rich residents that have to put up with the noise. The losers are the likes of Grenfield tower residents and others priced out of the city.

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Coming at this with a non-London-centric view of the world I see nothing in that article that refers to foreign rich kids in V12 supercars in London. I think a much more general view is of boy-racers titting about around the "circuit" and car parks of just about every decently sized urban area across the country. It mentions "breaking legal noise requirements". He even references boy racers, which isn't a typical term used to refer to foreign supercar owners. As for dirty money, citizenship and Grenfell, I think you're stretching it a bit there on an article on installing noise sensors, mate.

andyss said:

Coming at this with a non-London-centric view of the world I see nothing in that article that refers to foreign rich kids in V12 supercars in London. I think a much more general view is of boy-racers titting about around the "circuit" and car parks of just about every decently sized urban area across the country. It mentions "breaking legal noise requirements". He even references boy racers, which isn't a typical term used to refer to foreign supercar owners. As for dirty money, citizenship and Grenfell, I think you're stretching it a bit there on an article on installing noise sensors, mate.

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yes a bit of a stretch in relevance - I meant those loosing out by the changing social makeup of the city rather than the noise issue. Anyway as you say maybe this was never focused on London as suggested, that's a biased assumption on my part since I'm often in the city.

Come on folks, it's not like pensioners out in the country somewhere have any real political power in the UK. If something has moved the needle on this it's because very rich people wanted something done about it, from their pet MPs or bought-and-paid-for councillors. The specific cadre of rich people most affected by this issue are in London, and tend to be old, white, and racist. I'm just pointing it out.

Yes, I know that ruffles feathers. Sorry, but it's pretty true, and it works this way on both sides of the Atlantic. Follow the money. Policy usually flows from money.

andyss said:

Coming at this with a non-London-centric view of the world I see nothing in that article that refers to foreign rich kids in V12 supercars in London. I think a much more general view is of boy-racers titting about around the "circuit" and car parks of just about every decently sized urban area across the country. It mentions "breaking legal noise requirements". He even references boy racers, which isn't a typical term used to refer to foreign supercar owners. As for dirty money, citizenship and Grenfell, I think you're stretching it a bit there on an article on installing noise sensors, mate.

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Its almost entirely the Knightsbridge / Chelsea areas that are the source of the problem and these cameras. For years as we know during the summer supercars are imported, UK/EU/Middle Eastern drivers congregate and rev/drive/blast around the west end. This is the root cause of the action by the noise police as there are wealthy influential people living in W London who've been lobbying for years. To be fair I sort of dont blame them, I've been around the area at night and post bar/restaurant/club the cars do circuits for a lot of the night, and yes they are mainly supercars with sports exhausts.
What this trial will do is prove the technology works and the fines can be administered, therefore while initially London it'll roll out to various parts of the UK to generate revenue. The difference been, as you see in photos, the visitors from the ME dont need to worry much about a £100 fine be it from this, illegal parking or speeding.
What you and I might find is a full throttle blast in an Emira at the wrong time in the wrong village might land you with a fine. While standard exhausts are limited by law, add some stone walls/tunnel/bridge into the mix and that DB limit is exceeded.

Porter said:

Come on folks, it's not like pensioners out in the country somewhere have any real political power in the UK. If something has moved the needle on this it's because very rich people wanted something done about it, from their pet MPs or bought-and-paid-for councillors. The specific cadre of rich people most affected by this issue are in London, and tend to be old, white, and racist. I'm just pointing it out.

Yes, I know that ruffles feathers. Sorry, but it's pretty true, and it works this way on both sides of the Atlantic. Follow the money. Policy usually flows from money.

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WOW! So you think white rich racist people have colluded and funded/bribed politicians because it was their way of getting at people from other ethnicity/cultural background?!!!

Around where I live, boy racer classification knows no race/creed/colour...the drivers of offensively loud (and I love a loud car) which use the empty night time streets as a race track have heritages from all over the world as well as the town we all live in!!! And the same can be said of the people who are affected.

In terms of numbers, those outside your classification heavily outweigh those within it. For you to be touting this claim, I feel you should substantiate it up with demographics of those who have complained. And also ascertain if it was done on racial grounds, and not just on the fact that it was keeping/waking them/their baby/their partner/parent up at all hours of the morning when they had to be up early to work!

Their is nothing more damaging to the anti-racism cause than accusing people of being racist when their motivation was the action itself, not the race of the person undertaking that action.

Wow, did I touch a nerve? Defensive much? News flash: rich people buy politicians. That's how it works. Don't yell at me because it shocks your sensibilities. It's not even a conspiracy, just a simple fact that politicians are responsive to the things that old rich people care about, and they are pretty proactive about trying to ingratiate themselves with that demographic.

And yes, old rich white people, particularly English ones, don't tend to like brown people in their neighborhoods, and definitely not nouveau riche brown people with V12 supercars.

What I'm saying isn't even controversial, it's just the world we're living in. And this certainly doesn't apply to all rich people or all white people. Settle down and swallow your bile.

Porter said:

Come on folks, it's not like pensioners out in the country somewhere have any real political power in the UK. If something has moved the needle on this it's because very rich people wanted something done about it, from their pet MPs or bought-and-paid-for councillors. The specific cadre of rich people most affected by this issue are in London, and tend to be old, white, and racist. I'm just pointing it out.

Yes, I know that ruffles feathers. Sorry, but it's pretty true, and it works this way on both sides of the Atlantic. Follow the money. Policy usually flows from money.

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Wow. And I thought I was cynical.

Porter said:

Wow, did I touch a nerve? Defensive much? News flash: rich people buy politicians. That's how it works. Don't yell at me because it shocks your sensibilities. It's not even a conspiracy, just a simple fact that politicians are responsive to the things that old rich people care about, and they are pretty proactive about trying to ingratiate themselves with that demographic.

And yes, old rich white people, particularly English ones, don't tend to like brown people in their neighborhoods, and definitely not nouveau riche brown people with V12 supercars.

What I'm saying isn't even controversial, it's just the world we're living in. And this certainly doesn't apply to all rich people or all white people. Settle down and swallow your bile.

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I just think for racism to stand a chance of being abolished (or as near to that as is possible... There will always be those who can't be educated!), it does not pay to be throwing out accusations of racism as a foundation for an issue which is obviously an issue regardless of background.
Anyway, it appears we are aligned on the anti racism stance so as that's the important point, let's leave it there. No bile to be swallowed!