Give police the tools to deal with boy racers

As written by Kit for the Andover Advertiser…

 One issue that crops up surprisingly often in my inbox is vehicle noise at night.

I hear from people who have been woken in the small hours by boy racers revving their engines or making a racket with their exhausts. 

It might seem a relatively small thing. But when it happens night after night, particularly when windows are open, it can make people’s lives a misery.

Annoyingly, some cars and bikes have been deliberately modified to be loud, and some drivers seem to regard our residential streets as a racetrack.

That’s why I’ve joined MPs from across Hampshire in backing our Police and Crime Commissioner’s call for the Government to give the police better tools to deal with excessively noisy vehicles. 

The problem is that while modifying an exhaust to make it noisier is already against the law, enforcing that law is far from straightforward. 

There isn’t a single and simple roadside noise limit that police can apply to every vehicle, and they don’t yet have an agreed national system for using “noise cameras” to enforce the rules.  

Noise cameras can pick up excessively noisy vehicles, and the tech has already been trialled by the Department for Transport. 

What’s missing is a clear national standard and a legal framework to allow the police to use them effectively. That’s what we’re asking the government to provide. 

This fits into a wider concern I hear about anti-social behaviour. I recently brought police, council leaders and youth workers together in Andover to look at what more we can do about crime and anti-social behaviour in our town.

We discussed CCTV coverage, problem areas, empty properties and visible policing. And I look forward to shortly joining officers on patrol. 

There’s a common thread here. Whether it’s vandalism, threatening behaviour or someone making a racket through a residential street late at night, too often a small number of people have an enormously disproportionate impact on everyone else.

We shouldn’t just shrug our shoulders and accept it. The police need practical tools to enforce the law, and where technology can help them do that efficiently and fairly, we should use it. 

People are entitled to some peace and quiet in their own homes. It really shouldn’t be too much to ask.