The adverse health effects of noise is widely known yet there so many people who seem to be oblivious to them and as such engage in activities which create noise nuisance.According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) noise causes a wide range of health effects, including: sleep disturbance; cardiovascular effects; damage to work and school performance; hearing impairment including tinnitus.
WHO also points out that noise has negative impacts on cognitive performance. For recall and reading, a reduction of the day and night noise level by 5 dB(A) within the range of 65–80 dB(A) was shown to improve performance by almost 10%. For attention and memory, a 5 dB (A) reduction in average noise level results in approximately 2–3% improvement of performance. These adverse impacts of noise on cognitive performance can lead to a reduction in the productivity at work and the learning performance at school.
In our country because of the lack of a sustained campaign noise nuisance has grown to unbearable levels in some areas and it would appear that playing music loudly has become part of our national culture. The situation has become worse because of advances in electronic technology which has helped musical sets to become much more powerful than what they were a couple of decades ago.
Against this backdrop it was heartening to hear of the announcement by the Ministry of Home Affairs, that the Guyana Police Force (GPF) will adopt ‘no nonsense’ approach and the full force of the law will deal with offenders, as complaints about noise nuisance pile up countrywide. The Ministry has disclosed that it continues to receive numerous complaints, from senior citizens, the sick, working parents, students and several other law abiding people, to the effect that they are being affected by loud, repetitive and continuous noise emanating from a range of places in the different Police Divisions.
The Ministry also said, in a release, that it has made checks at the locations, on specified days and times, and verified the validity and justification of the complaints.
The release said the Ministry wishes to inform that the relevant Divisional Commanders of the GPF have been provided with the details pertaining to the complaints and directed to take appropriate action to ensure that Subsection (1) of Section 174 A of the Summary Jurisdiction (Offences) Act, as amended by Act No. 1 of 1989, is not breached.
The law states:“No person shall, in any road, street, public place or land or in building or premises, by operating or causing or suffering to be operated any stereo set, juke box, radio, wireless loudspeaker, gramophone, amplifier, automatic piano or similar instrument of music, or by any other means whatsoever, make or cause or suffer to be made any noise which shall be so loud and so continuous or repetitive as to cause a nuisance to occupants of any premises in the neighbourhood.”
Another aspect of the noise nuisance the Ministry should look at is loud music emanating from privately owned vehicles and vehicles advertising shows. Somehow or the other it would appear that the operators believe they have the right to play music as loud as they feel.
But what is important is that the campaign against noise nuisance must be relentless and sustained or else this scourge will not be stopped because it seems that some people get a sense of pleasure when they play loud music and disturb others.
In the past, similar no nonsense campaigns against noise nuisance were announced but they were not sustained, consequently the problem has continued unabated.