You can contribute by taking the following action today: (for detailed thoughts and conversations visit the Blog page)
You can start by signing the following petitions: ( signing all the below petitions by your fellow citizens will take less than 10 minutes)
- With 5 consecutive horn usage within 10 seconds, auto-disable the horn for 30 seconds
- Honking on the roads
- Traffic Noise Pollution Control
- Controlling noise pollution by reducing decibel sound produced by horn
- Motorcycles without silencer must be stopped
- Ban loud exhaust silencers and horns of motor vehicles
- Horn decibel level to be below 70
- Law to stop change of horns in India
- Ban unnecessary horn honking
If you are a rider:
- Drive in your lane
- Follow the speed limit
- Do not overspeed and most importantly do not use the horn unnecessarily (specially in residential areas, schools, hospitals)
- You do not need to use a horn at every road intersection. Slow down and check for incoming traffic. If there is no incoming traffic, you do not need to press the horn. If there is incoming traffic, let them pass and then be on your way!
- Do not install after-market accessories like loud horns, bright lights, loud silencers etc
- New borns, students, and the old live in homes by the roads. Each time you horn, it causes significant disturbance to their well being
- If you are being driven, encourage the driver to reduce the use of horn
- Encourage companies like Ola, Uber, Zomato, Swiggy etc to make it mandatory for their riders to follow traffic discipline at all times
- Write to your local newspaper, police station etc to install barricades and speed limit and “no horn” signages
- Immediately take a picture of vehicle/owner and report to your local police station (via social media or dedicated traffic violation page)
- You can also write to your local transport officials with your thoughts and concerns (you can refer to the letters I have written in the blog section)
- You can write to the PMO office and request that road safety laws be made more stringent and unnecessary honking banned
If you are part of a leading technology or auto manufacturing firm: [I personally believe that addressing the issue at the equipment level is the only way to address this issue in a country as large and diverse such as India ]
- Develop technology to restrict 4-wheelers @60km/hour and 2-3 wheelers @40km/hour (with the exception of law enforcement and emergency vehicles)
- Reduce the maximum sound output of horns to 75 dB and restrict the flow of sound waves to a small area around the vehicle
- Enable technology which restricts installation of after-market horns in your vehicle
- Enable the sound of a horn to play equally loud inside the vehicle so that it discourages unnecessary use
- Enable auto-disable of the horn for 30 seconds, with 5 consecutive horn usage in less than 10 seconds (2-button press mechanism if horn is required during the 30 second period) OR Set a limit to the number of horns in a minute
- Enable AI cameras to detect “RED” light and deter horn/movement of the vehicle until it turns “Green”
- Enable AI cameras to play loud warning if the vehicle is changing lanes very frequently
- SIAM and ARAI to take notice and contribute (urge everyone to write to them)
If you are in the police or relevant government department:
- Identify and publish “Silent Zones” in your city. Install appropriate barricades, cameras and signages
- You can begin with the 5 largest hospitals, schools and the busiest traffic signals
- Insist that the Top 10 driving schools in the city have a specific curriculum on road safety and noise pollution
- Entrance and Exit of Top Residential lanes should be marked and riders must be informed that they are now entering a residential zone and must strictly follow speed limit, lane discipline and avoid unnecessary usage of horns
- Strict legal action against riders driving with loud music systems, after-market horns and silencers
- Separate lanes for 2-wheelers. It is often the result of 2-wheelers, 3-wheelers and 4-wheelers driving on the same road without lanes that results in accidents and excessive use of horns
- Directive to all cab aggregators in your city to have conduct training session for their partners on road safety with a specific focus on sound pollution
- Training and empowering the traffic police to recognise, identify and take action against noise pollution
- Increase green cover around the city to absorb sound (with a focus around silent zones and residential areas)
- Ministry of Road Transport & Highways to formalise a standardised training curriculum with large cab aggregators with a special focus on road safety essentials — speeding, lane discipline, excessing using of horn
- There are various reputed Road Safety NGOs around the world (21 in India, but without any website/presence); Ministry of Road Transport & Highways must further incentivise and work with these NGOs. The Road Safety Engineering Cell of the Ministry does not show any activity since July 2017
- Allow citizens to adopt traffic signals. The citizen will be responsible for donating camera, sound meter and any other item through mutual discussion with the traffic police and a website with the list of signals/donors/key metrics should be launched
- Opening of a Twitter or Instagram (or both) account where users can tweet/post license plat numbers and/or pictures of offenders (speed, sound, lane). If the picture of the same license plate is posted more than X number of times/month, action to be taken against the offender