Shrill horns, the bane of residents as well as motorists on the road, have slowly made a return to the city in the past few months. In the absence of a major crackdown or stricter fines, they are being sported by everyone, from small vehicles to large trucks and buses.
On Tuesday, the traffic police started another campaign to tackle this menace starting with Town Hall, Hudson Circle and Rajajinagar.
“Officers across the city have been instructed to remove shrill horns from vehicles and confiscate them,” R. Hitendra, Additional Commissioner of Police, Traffic, said.
However, while such drives have been held in the past as well, a sustained effort is needed to do away with the menace, citizens say, as the problem is now spreading to the quieter lanes of Bengaluru as well. “There is a construction site on our road where trucks come every night to dump material. As there is a turn just before the site, they use their horns, which can be heard more than 800 metres away. Complaining to the police has not helped,” says Sohel Shah, a resident of Old Airport Road.
In 2015, the Transport Department undertook a massive enforcement campaign against vehicles with shrill horns booking 2,000 cases and seizing such horns. After this, smaller drives continued. However, the focus seems to have shifted to defective and modified silencers now. While officials insist that cases are still being booked against those who install these horns, the situation on the ground is very different.
Citizens hope that the latest drive will have a noticeable effect. According to the rules, the sound level from vehicle horns should not be more than 85 decibels (db). However, shops near J.C. Road and other places stock horns which exceed 100 db. These are on offer even on e-commerce sites where a 100 db horn can be procured for as low as ₹600. Musical horns, which sometimes imitate a police siren or an air raid siren, can also be easily purchased for a few thousand rupees.
“While in other countries, honking itself is considered impolite, here I will settle for a normal horn in the vehicle behind me. Even two-wheeler riders install custom-made horns which irritate you when they honk in traffic,” says Sidharth Reval, who works in Manyata Tech Park on the Outer Ring Road.
Citizens cannot report shrill horns
The Bengaluru Traffic Police’s Public Eye app, which allows citizens to record and report traffic violations to the police, is not of much help when it comes to shrill horns. While up to 14 kinds of violations can be reported, they are photo-based; the app does not help with sound-based violations.
Officers admit it is a challenge to strictly enforce the rules. Till August this year, only 9,395 violations were booked for shrill horns with a further 1,622 cases for defective silencers.
“Include a provision to upload videos to Public Eye,” says Nagesha H., a resident of K.R. Road in Basavangudi.
Officials, however, are worried about the bandwidth that such an option would require. “Most phones these days record high-definition videos. The uploader will have to trim and resize before sending it to us, which will defeat the basic purpose of the app,” a police officer said.
The latest version of the app has an option to record and resize videos. However, unlike in case of photos, there is no follow-up page to enter details of the violation.
The app was launched by the police in collaboration with civic forum Janaagraha. Attempts to reach Janaagraha were unsuccessful.
What the law says
Section 190(2) in The Motor Vehicles Act, 1988
(2) Any person who drives or causes or allows to be driven, in any public place a motor vehicle, which violates the standards prescribed in relation to road safety, control of noise and air pollution, shall be punishable for the first offence with a fine of ₹1,000 and for any second or subsequent offence with a fine of ₹2,000.
In Karnataka, horns and silencers should not make noise above 85 db.
