MINISTER CONSIDERING• NEW LAW AGAINST NOISE
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BY A SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
NEW legislation, which may be used against road transport operators, is under consideration by the Minister of Housing and Local, Government to enable local authorities more effectively to combat nuisance by noise.
A clause has been drafted by the law committee of the Association of Municipal Corporations to provide that any " exCessive or unreasonable or unnecessary noise or vibration which is prejudicial to health or a nuisance or an annoyance to householders or to occupiers of premises" is to be a "statutory nuisance."
In any proceedings in respect of noise or vibration "occasioned by or in the course of any trade or business," it may be a good defence to prove that the best practicable means for preventing or mitigating the nuisance have been used. CoMplaints must be made by not fewer than three occupiers of premises.
The committee's move follows a survey of noise nuisances throughout the country. Lorries starting from cold and the noise of goods being transferred from one vehicle to another were among the nuisances complained of.
"END AREA DISCRIMINATION"
SPEAKING to the Insurance Institute of London on Monday, Mr. K. L. Kelly, secretary of the Automobile Association, appealed to insurers to end the system of area discrimination. Present methods benefited operators based in lower-rated zones but whose vehicles were used mainly in the more highly rated districts at the expense of those whose conditions were the reverse.
Discrimination should be based on individuals' claims experience, Mr. Kelly argued.
[Third-party insurance for a 5tonner in a dense urban area is £19 7s. 6d.; in a less populated district, f15 I5s.; and in the country, £13 17s. 6d. a year.]
FOREMAN FINED FOR TIME-SHEET OFFENCES
InA FOREMAN checker of British Road Services (Parcels), Ltd., was fined, at Sheffield last Friday, for two offences relating to his time-sheet. He admitted obtaining Es. 5d. from his employers by falsely pretending that he ceased work at 7.30 a.m. on August 11, whereas he had stopped at 6 a.m. It was stated that he tried to obtain 8s. 4d. by similar pretence on another date.
Defendant said that while working at night he received a message to take out a vehicle. He had already made up his time-sheets and had forgotten to alter them,
NEW RATES SCHEDULE
AN advisory rates schedule has been prepared by the National Conference of Road Transport Clearing Houses. It will be introduced next week.