If you own a car or a bike and plan to modify it to make it sound thunderous like in the movies, you better think twice. In a bid to crack down on noisy vehicles, law enforcement agencies are now taking the aid of noise-detecting technology. Using this equipment, officials aim to enhance efficiency in detecting vehicles that produce illegally loud noises and penalise the offenders.
Noise pollution in the capital city has become increasingly prevalent with excessive noise generated by modified silencers in cars and bikes.
These vehicles, often altered to produce louder and more aggressive sounds, disturb the tranquillity of neighbourhoods, disrupting sleep patterns and posing potential health risks.
“When they pass by from here, I saw some of the bikers press something which speeds up the bikes and makes a noise. They go at so much speed. It is mostly bikes, but I also saw seven to eight such cars. There is one car and before we see the car, we hear its sound. I don’t know about them but for us, it is very risky,” said Phurba Dorji, a resident.
“It should be stopped. It’s very disturbing. When we go to the town, it is so loud. It is even more disturbing when it’s late in the night and we are sleeping. There is a rule against it but they are not abiding by it,” said Tshering Wangchuk, another resident.
According to the police, most of the riders alter the silencers of their bikes to produce a jarring loud sound to draw the attention of passersby and also likely due to the influence of movies.
While this type of modification is done to both cars and bikes, the traffic division in Thimphu says most often it is the bikes that are altered. Over the last three years, the traffic division has taken action against more than 100 modified motorcycles in Thimphu city alone.
“We see there are a lot of repeated offenders. So, to deter these repeat offenders, we initiated the system of practice of seizing these modification pipes. So currently we have nine modification silencer pipes and it’s lying in the office,” said Lt Colonel Chencho Gyeltshen, officiating superintendent of the Police, Traffic Division.
He added that they also found some automobile workshops freely replacing the vehicles with loud silencers and have stopped them from doing so.
According to sections 65 and 66 of the Road Safety & Transport Regulations 2021,
“A registered vehicle owner shall obtain prior approval for making any alteration or modification to a motor vehicle. And the Authority may approve the vehicle alteration or modification only after conducting a detailed study concerning safety and any other reasons deemed appropriate.”
Section 450 and 451 of the Regulations also say that “A person shall not drive or allow a motor vehicle to be driven on a road unless the vehicle has a silencing device and A person shall not drive or allow a motor vehicle to be driven on a road that produces undue noise or noise beyond the permissible level set by the National Environment Commission”
“To enforce these regulations, we have acquired a certain number of noise measuring equipment. Usually the modified bikes, most of the bikes can be easily detected by our naked eyes. So we penalise them. Some of the bikes which come with high cc are very difficult to find out whether it is modified or not,” said Lt Colonel Chencho Gyeltshen
The Bhutan Construction and Transport Authority has purchased 28 numbers of noise detection devices which will be distributed across the country.
According to RST regulations, people are fined Nu 600 and Nu 1,000 for modification and excessive noise pollution respectively.
Samten Dolkar
Edited by Yeshi Gyaltshen
