I’m driven to confess my loud music ‘crime’

LOUD music in cars has always annoyed me. Not the Billy Bremner hit from the 1980s (and that’s not the Billy Bremner who played for Leeds United, but the rock and roll musician).

For a time, that song became a bit of an anthem for me: “Speakers on the ceiling, Speakers in the door, Speakers in the dashboard, Speakers on the floor.” It summed up all that was irritating about those who felt they had the right to impose their choice of music on others.

Summer brings out the worst in them and, even when parked, their vehicles can visibly throb to a beat that could change the rhythm of bodily organs in unsuspecting pedestrians.

“Call an ambulance. I don’t want to have a heart attack outside Sainsbury’s.”

“Relax. You’re not having a heart attack. It’s loud music in cars. But, just to be clear. If you were to have a heart attack, which store would you prefer to have it outside?”

Some years ago, while stopped at Folly Hall traffic lights on my way home from the office, my brain was invaded by the boom boom music from a pulsing vehicle that stopped alongside with the windows down. I accepted the challenge and turned The Three Tenors up to full blast just in time for Nessun Dorma.

By heck, missus, that’s the sort of music that really gets your hair standing on end. It pinned me to my seat like a G Force and once Mr Boom Boom had gone, I had to turn it down to a normal level before I was able to drive.

The point of all this is that I have just discovered, courtesy of insurance experts Carole Nash, that rule 148 of the Highway Code states that playing loud music in cars that is deemed a distraction could make you liable to a £100 fine, although not a lot of people know that.

In extreme cases, where the music is so loud that you can’t hear potential hazards, drivers could be deemed as putting others at risk, charged with dangerous driving, receive a £5,000 fine and possible ban.

All we need now to enforce the law are Noise Monitors with the power to stop the nuisance music, preferably with a big hammer, on the spot fines, and vehicle confiscation for repeat offenders.

If this does happen, I hope the law is not retrospectively applied after I just confessed to loud music in cars at Folly Hall lights. If an official does come knocking. I’ll tell them it was Billy Bremner.