Noise clamp down hits france

» A French noise camera trial could have serious implications for UK riders with loud pipes. French authorities have introduced noise cameras that are claimed to detect illegally loud vehicles and automatically send owners a fine – up to 135 Euros according to the French press. If this experiment works, Britain’s Department for Transport will no doubt pick up on the idea, having repeatedly expressed a desire to crack down on noisy vehicles (not just bikes) and conducted their own noise camera tests in 2019.

The French cameras – part of a two year experiment – are sited in seven French cities, including Paris, Nice and Toulouse, and work by linking directional microphones with ANPR cameras. However, there’s no guarantee the trial will work, as noise is far more difficult to measure than speed.

Besides the obvious problem of making sure that the vehicle in the photo is the one making the noise rather than, for example, a low flying jet, there are also significant technical problems pinning down where the noise threshold is for different types of vehicle doing different speeds. The British testers came to the conclusion that their results could only be used ‘to configure or set a performance specification for a more sophisticated noise camera system in the near future when the technology is fully developed’. Translation: we can’t do it yet. In the meantime Bike will keep a beady ear on the French experiments.