EC threatens to tax noise
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• The European Commission wants to impose tax penalties on noisy LGVs and it is evaluating a complex charging system designed to encourage hauliers to buy new vehicles.
The latest European vehicle noise limits, which came into force this year, raised the average price of trucks by 4%, says the EC. In an effort to make new vehicles more attractive, and to take the noisiest off the road, Brussels is considering a green paper on "Future Noise Policy" tabled by EU Environment Commissioner Ritt Bjerregaard. This calls for "more differentiation in existing annual vehicle and fuel taxes to take into account noise costs". The EU's current 80dB(A) noise limit has cut truck sound emissions by 90% since the early seventies but actual traffic noise levels have only fallen by 1 -2dEi(A).
This is due to the slow replacement of older vehicles and a significant growth in traffic and tyre noise.
LGVs which meet the 1996 standards are so quiet that tyre noise has become "the main source of sound at speeds above 50 km/h", says the EC, which is now working on tyre legislation "which will take into account the balance between reducing tyre noise and maintaining wet adhesion".