A race that has learned to kill silently, can and must learn to build silently. Man must become ashamed of the primitive techniques he uses to shape, break, and rotate physical objects.
The research of NASA and DOD should be culled for civilian use. That silent submarine engine belongs in our garbage trucks as well.
Research into electric and fuel-cell power sources for civilian use must be encouraged. Such research could go beyond motor vehicles, and provide quieter power plants for construction equipment.
Government should sponsor extensive research in architectural acoustics. Can buildings be shaped to avoid the canyon-like reverberations typical of streets lined with tall buildings?
Research into noise law must include questions such as whether noisemaking should be criminal or administrative law, enforced only by police, or special inspectors, or whom.
Just as we do research on what kind of punishment will be a deterrent to crime, we need research on what kind of punishment will deter the crime of noise. Small fines may encourage the noisemaker to continue polluting. Large fines may keep sympathetic judges from convicting. The ideal enforcement provision is the power to close down a noisy operation until proper noise controls are instituted. This can be done with construction noise in Germany and in Switzerland. The Zurich police told me that in some cases construction work was stopped for as much as two weeks until the contractor came up with the required noise reduction.
It might be productive to explore forms of ostracism. Construction companies should be required to post signs saying something like "This noise may be injurious to susceptible people. It is probably making our workers deaf. But it is legal. If you don't like it, move." At the bottom of this copy should be the name and address of the company's top executive.
Convicted horn honkers should be required to adorn their cars with a warning sticker: "I drive with my horn instead of my head." Horn tooters could lose the use of their cars for one week or more.
One thought for education horn honking drivers is the setting of "horn traps." These should be set up at night in locations where horn honking is a constant irritant. Volunteers should cooperate with the police to serve as witnesses. A floodlight system should be arranged at a given corner. When the horn honking starts, on go the lights and the volunteers serve as witnesses while the police write the tickets. For more effective enforcement, the muffler and horn-blowing provisions should be taken out of the overcrowded courts and placed in special administrative courts.
All cities should be encouraged to adopt a model anti-horn code to be promulgated by the Department of Transportation. Warning signs should be posted on city sidewalks and at all entrances to a city, such as bridge toll stations and main arteries. All beginning drivers and those who write in for license renewal should be given a copy of the horn (and muffler) law. Safety testing stations should be able to test horn emissions to see they do not exceed set criteria.
As for sirens, we must address ourselves to that balance of equities which requires that thousands be disturbed in the pursuit of errands of mercy. Are more lives taken by speeding fire apparatus, police cars, and ambulances than are saved by this practice?
Truck drivers and motorcyclists must be studied. If they do gut out mufflers because they believe that a lack of intense noise denotes a lack of power, the public has a right to know. Our enforcement agencies must learn how to convert the superstitious driver to orthodox respect for quieter operation.