Noisy cars/bikes

We live on Devonshire Road and seem to be plagued with noisy cars and motorbikes.

One car last night (1130) appeared to be doing laps of One Tree Hill like it was the Nurburgring. It had an incredibly loud exhaust note when changing gear and was high revving all the way. Has anyone made any formal complaints or raised this issue with police/council?

They must be local so it would be useful if we could identify the culprit, the car and where it’s parked.

D

You can call the police when it’s happening. Don’t think they can do much unless it’s dangerous driving. That’s about it. The law is not on your side. It’s just “part and parcel of living in a big city” unfortunately.

There are legal limits on vehicles apparently.

Have to say for me, the ‘you chose to live in a city’ comment is getting a bit old! No one expects to hear pins drop but we also don’t have to put up with anti social behaviour or the actions of others decreasing our quality of life!

There is appropriate law, but no enforcement.

We’ve noticed some noisy cars on Devonshire Road the last two nights in particular. Very anti-social. I guess something to report to 101 which I think connects to the local police station?

This is behind a paywall, but is also page 10 in today’s (4th Aug 2018) paper edition:

“Sir Hugo Swire, the Conservative MP for East Devon, raised concerns over the noise impact of bikes in a parliamentary question. He told The Times, that ‘motorcycle noise represented an assault on rural communities’”

Is there no SE London MP speaking for us on this matter? Is no MP calling the noise an assault on urban communities?

I can’t find it in Hansard, perhaps it hasn’t been published yet, but it will be interesting to see if any of our representatives were in the chamber and whether they spoke.

Is there one? The loss, or so I thought, of local stations seemed to leave localities ill equipped to deal with so called low level crime and anti-social behaviours. If you found some lost property on the street you used to take it to the local police station but where would you take it now.

It would be interesting to know how police numbers compare Borough by Borough per head of population.

Does the GLA component in Council Tax pay for policing? Is it a flat rate across London Boroughs?

Thanks for pointing this out - I’ve messaged this thread to our MP Ellie Reeves on Twitter, and will email her in a few days time if I don’t hear back.

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Gd mng not sure where this topics fits but why do cars think it’s a gd idea while everyone is asleep they go racing around standstead road screeching the wheels etc.

The drivers, not the cars. I sympathise, and there seems to be zero law enforcement of traffic violations and other noise nuisances in Lewisham.

There’s an orange off road ‘scrambler’ style motor bike with a tiny number plate and (deliberately?) knackered exhaust that makes a huge racket as the rider speeds along the road. It goes down Houston Road and up Cranston each morning at about 0730, then back the other way between 1730 and 1800.

I guess police don’t have the resources to sit and wait for this sort of thing to go past any more, but I’m continually surprised how this thing can be driven around so regularly and not get picked up. At least the tiny number plate must be illegal, even if the noise nuisance is harder to register?

I think I hear that same bike on Woolstone road about 7.30. Will look tomorrow. It’s so damn loud.

The MP won’t do anything if they aren’t aware of it. But obviously it’s part of their role to take on local issues so worth raising with Ellie Reeves.

Since posting this, I’ve not seen the orange noisy bike!

I’d like to think it’s more than a coincidence, but I imagine I’ll probably see him tomorrow or something. Fingers crossed I don’t!

I had a fairly detailed response from Ellie Reeves about this. She pointed the issue out to the police and local authority. I’ve attached the letter from Lewisham, who say they’ll look at some more yellow lines on the road. The police said they’d step up speed checks on the road and offered to take me out with the speed gun. Text pasted below.

I am writing to you following your recent complaint into motorists speeding on Devonshire Road, SE23. Although I have not witnessed any speeding motorists on this road myself, I do appreciate the fact that I nor my colleagues are able to patrol this road on a 24 hour basis and these incidents, unfortunately do occur, which is evident from your recent complaint.

In response to this, I am more than happy to come and speak with you in person and discuss with you what our, as a police team, intend to do to hopefully deter motorists from acting in this anti-social manner. I will touch on this briefly in this response which is to conduct a number of vehicle initiatives on Devonshire Road making use of our laser speed detection camera. Also with regards to this, and another reason for wishing to meet you in person is that I would like to know whether you would like to accompany us on one of these initiatives, if anything to see how we address these particular issues and deal with motorists found exceeding the speed limit.

If you would like to meet with me and/or accompany us on such an initiative, then just let me know when you are available for me to come and discuss this further with you. I am on duty over this coming weekend and am available between the hours of 3PM and 8PM on Friday 07/09/18 and the same for Saturday.

I hope you find this response satisfactory and I look forward to hearing from you in due course.

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Never any initiatives like this in London. Anyone know why?

From the article:

So there’s only 3333 vehicles in the centre of Rotterdam!! I’d be interested to know if that was over a day, week or month.

A similar experiment was apparently tried in the UK in 2019, though I’m not sure where:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.autoexpress.co.uk/car-news/107097/new-noise-cameras-to-target-loud-car-exhausts%3Famp

The article in Auto Express was from 2019. It seems that the department of transport was going to run a pilot scheme of ANPR noise cameras. I can’t find anything on the internet about what came of it. The notion that 3% of the vehicles caused 100% of the excess noise sounds about right to me. It really is time this sort of thing was cracked down on. I somehow doubt that anything will be done though.

Yep - seems like a good intention that may have either fizzled out or been interrupted by Covid.

Given the large number of ANPR cameras around London, perhaps equipping some of them with noise detection microphones would get even more use out of them - the ULEZ could include noise emissions?

Interesting suggestion: air pollution is not just particles, which governments are concentrating on, but can also be sound waves. Noise pollution is a category of air pollution.

Why it isn’t being dealt with? I suppose we are no longer allowed to discuss it on this dying forum. because it is undoubtably a political question.

I believe Oxford council are currently trialing a system that fines people £50 a time for being noisy in their vehicles. Hopefully we’ll see this rolled out across the country soon as nobody can put up with it any longer!

When we are in a situation in which 999 calls to the police are not being responded to, I can’t see time and resource being given to this, however much it’s a wretched nuisance to all exposed to it. If it could somehow be automatically linked to the ULEZ that might be better for those of you in it, assuming it did act as a deterrent, but obviously not for those of us outside it!

On the local BBC news last night there are monitors put up on the roads (I think in North London registering noise levels, & talk of issuing fines. A bit like speeding fines I suppose.

I wonder if this relates to Anthea Turner’s campaigning efforts which recently were reported as having some progress in Kensington and Chelsea:

Good job. Thats quite encouraging.

Good for Anthea. I note her zippy trousers. I used to wear trousers like that when I was a 16 year old punk rocker. Ah, them were the days !

Yes now I think about it I think it was Kensington, as they were complaining about the Lamborghinis etc & zooped up cars.
But if you live in Kensington, they are hardly going to be driving a Ford Fiesta or such like are they

There’s someone who races a bright blue flashy convertible car up Kirkdale that makes one hell of a “look at me; I’m a wannabe” racket. Don’t cars have silencers to prevent that kind of thing? Maybe he’s removed it. If the residents of Kensington and Chelsea have to put up with this on a nightly basis and with a whole load of anti social posers, it must be unbearable. So good for Anthea and the residents for standing up to them. I just hope the cars are seized and scrapped, not just the drivers issued with paltry fines that don’t make a dent in their wallets.