Fancy lights, air horns removed from buses in Erode

About 150 buses checked; action taken against buses that violated norms

RTO officials removing air horn from a private bus at the Erode Bus Stand on Thursday. Photo: M. Govarthan

In a massive drive conducted by officials from Regional Transport Office, air horns and disco lights were removed from 40 buses in the Erode Bus Stand, during the late hours of Thursday.

The officials said that they checked about 150 government and private buses in the bus stand and action was taken against the buses that violated the norms. The drive was conducted from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m.

“The permissible sound level for a horn is 85 to 90 decibels. But buses from which the air horns were removed had a sound level that was as high as 128 decibels,” an RTO official said and added that the vehicles from which the horns were removed included five mini buses, 34 private buses and one Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation bus.

Officials said that the private buses resulted in large scale noise pollution, resulting in a flow of complaints against them from the public.

The team also removed disco lights — fitted around the front windscreen — from seven private buses. “These lights have a very high penetrating power and block the vision of persons or vehicle users coming in the opposite direction,” an official added.

He said that persons who were most affected by the disco light were the pedestrians and two-wheeler riders. “These powerful lights that are illegally fitted in front of the buses forced persons coming in the opposite direction to risk their lives and go off the road,” officials said.

The teams also disconnected tape recorders that were playing at a very high volume — beyond the permissible sound limit — as they said that the tape recorders were used to attract passengers, but caused inconvenience to other passengers. They warned of stringent action against mini buses using tape recorders. A case was registered against a private bus for multiple violations including use of air horn and disco lights. The officials said that a fine will be imposed on offenders during successive raids that will be conducted in the days to come.

Officials said that the price of a disco light was between Rs. 20,000 to Rs. 30,000, while air horns were as expensive as Rs. 10,000 apiece.

The drive was conducted by RTO officials from Erode and Perundurai led by Regional Transport Officers (of Erode) S. Lakshmanasamy and (Perundurai), S. Venkatesan and Motor Vehicle Inspectors M. Ramalingam, M. Murugesan and Damodharan.