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There once was a time when the title of world's noisiest city teetered between Hong Kong and New York, with Bangkok not far behind. But that was before New York stepped up its aggressive "war on noise". Now Hong Kong's High Court has kicked off a noise abatement campaign by acting on a complaint and ordering school children at Lantau International School to shut up and, if they can't do that, to keep their playground noise level below a conversation-friendly 60 decibels. It will be expensive if they don't, with court-ordered fines on the school of HK$100,000 (403,000 baht) for a first offence and HK$200,000 (805,000 baht) for a second.
We can be thankful that Thai courts are not in the business of gagging school children. When they return to class on Dec 6, there should be no need to curb their natural exuberance as they will be too busy trying to catch up on weeks of lost studies. Still, such drastic measures do raise the question of what action we are taking to tame the roar in our major urban cities. The last thing we want is to beat out the other contenders, Mumbai, Buenos Aires, Cairo and Nagasaki, and take the top slot. Even with many vehicles forced off the roads by the floods, a reading taken on Nov 3 by the Pollution Control Department showed an average noise level of 73.3 decibels at Din Daeng intersection which the department colour-coded in red and listed as "unhealthy" in its noise pollution index.
Progress has come in small steps. The most noticeable in recent years has been the phasing out of shrieking whistles blown by security guards and car park attendants in favour of light batons, an image makeover that has delighted the public. This has been seen as a significant victory in battling the culture of noise that has come to dominate every shopping mall, public park, hospital waiting area, bus, train station or wherever people congregate. Instead of sensibly throwing them out, department stores, supermarkets and malls seem to be increasing the onslaught of motion-activated visual displays which broadcast advertising messages at a deafening sound level. There is no modern equivalent of the old-fashioned jukebox which would accept a coin to play a blank track and thereby guarantee three minutes of silence in a cafe, pub or restaurant so that a conversation could be heard.
Loud noise is recognised by the military as a form of psychological torture and audiologists point out it is just as harmful to civilians. Medical studies have blamed excessive noise exposure and a high-decibel lifestyle for an alarming variety of ailments, especially hearing loss when personal digital audio players pump up the volume. Nightclubs and bars regularly exceed the permitted 90-decibel maximum.
Parks ban pets and companion animals because they might annoy visitors, and then pollute the environment with irritants such as blaring loudspeakers on poles. In the capital it is the job of the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration to rein in this racket and enforce ordinances. This task should find a place on its agenda once the floods have receded and the clean-up been completed.
It should not take a mass outcry to get some action on this, although shamefully it probably will. Other countries are far less tolerant. In Barcelona, Spain, a bar owner was jailed for a record 51/2 years in 2009 for "torturing" his neighbours with loud music from his sound system. As we prepare to enter the noisiest month of the year, let us show that we can enjoy ourselves in the run-up to seasonal festivities without having to inflict acoustic trauma on others.
Source http://www.bangkokpost.com
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