Against loud motorcycles: Paris starts noise brigade

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Motorcycle noise

Debate about the volume of motorcycles

Against loud motorcycles: Paris starts noise brigade
Akrapovic

counselor

traffic & business

Against loud motorcycles: Paris starts noise brigade

Against noisy motorcycles
Paris starts noise brigade

The French capital has set up a special police force to target excessively loud motorcycles. The noise brigade consists of 40 men.


Uli Baumann,

Eva Breutel

11/28/2019

The newly formed police department has been specially trained for its noise mission. The troop, which constantly carry specially purchased noise measurement systems, has been active in the Paris area since the end of September 2019 and has since issued a warning to around 150 two-wheelers. The fines for caught noise sinners are 90 euros.

Whoever manipulates pays twice

If manipulation of the exhaust system is also found, the fine is doubled to 180 euros. In addition, the noise sinners are obliged with a deficiency card to restore their two-wheeler to a proper condition and then to present it to the police. In extreme cases, noise offenders face the risk of the vehicle being confiscated and even imprisoned.

For some time now, Paris has also been using so-called noise radar systems, which measure and then register vehicles that are too loud.

European legislation limits the volume of scooters and motorcycles to a maximum of 80 decibels, depending on the displacement. The measurement tolerance limit is five decibels. The World Health Organization (WHO) specifies a limit value of 65 decibels above which noise exposure can have a negative impact on health.

Motorcycles are perceived as louder

Basically, motorcycles on the road are not louder than cars, but rather quieter, at least when it comes to levels. A study on the subject of motorcycle noise on behalf of the State Institute for the Environment, Measurements and Nature Conservation Baden-Wurttemberg came to the conclusion in 2010 that the emission level of motorcycles and cars is about the same at the same speed. The authors had evaluated the measurement data from around 17,000 pass-bys, including around 1,800 motorcycles. Many motorcycles were even significantly quieter than the cars. However, there were a few particularly noisy motorcycles and, according to the authors, they would probably be noticed more strongly by the local residents affected.

Because it is not the sound level itself that is disturbing, but the subjectively perceived loudness that can be determined in psychoacoustic measurements. According to the study cited, motorcycle noises are perceived as significantly louder and therefore more annoying than car noises – at 100 km / h even as twice as loud, although the noise level is the same. Musicologists at the University of Vienna came to a similar conclusion. A psychoacoustic study found that motorcycle noises are perceived as particularly annoying because they “a high loudness with a high energy content at two to four kilohertz, a tonal sharpness and pronounced roughness” exhibit. And: test subjects who had negative attitudes towards motorcycles reacted particularly sensitively to the sounds.

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