Rocky
I guess, out of all this correspondence, that your feelings are that
the offending driver(s) should be given a chance to quieten the vehicle
before other actions are taken. And I agree with that. My "what if's"
have been extreme, only to illustrate how general and broad based
the "discretionary" statement can be.
My point originally was that there is no standards, and I feel there should
be. Others have voiced their thoughts and opinions, and with
the exception of John Lieberman and Phil Osborne, have indicated
their regions DO have some noise control limits, or that they feel they
should.
To a person, everybody agrees that the car used as an example is
very loud, most agree it is probably too loud. My point is, and has been,
there is no way of regulating the sound levels, as proven by
this vehicle - - (probably worse case scenario).
I have been guaging the responses, and what few there have been really do
not give me any thoughts on what to suggest in a letter.
But, I actually feel a little better by the other voices indicating I am not
alone in being concerned about the lack of any regulatory standards
regarding noise "pollution" at our events.
Now, for a fair and equitable - - and enforceable - - suggestion to
fix this problem. How about the driver(s) of any vehicle over a certain
standard be required to provide hearing protection to everybody at the event
site, or within a certain distance??
Squeeling Tires?? Man, I don't EVEN have any thoughts about that one!!
G
----- Original Message -----
From: Rocky Entriken <rocky@tri.net>
To: George Ryan <quad4fiero@webzone.net>
Cc: Team. Net <autox@autox.team.net>
Sent: Thursday, September 23, 1999 12:41 AM
Subject: Re: Fehn/Butler hyperloud RX-7
>
> >
> >OK, now tell me - in the real world - who do I protest to at a local
event
> >when the event chair tells me to leave the site because I am making too
> much
> >noise - at his discretion - ?
>
> Actually George, I think you have a valid point there. Maybe the RE, the
> solo chair (as opposed to event chair), the safety steward (not really a
> safety item, but perhaps he would be a voice of reason). Local level is
> casual enough that the useful bureaucracy is not really in place. One
would
> hope you would first get the opportunity to quiet the car. If the event
> chair is just going to be a jerk about it, then you probably have to
accept
> that he is a jerk and just go. The tough part would be to just go while
> refraining from being a jerk yourself (which would be so tempting). But I
> also believe it highly unlikely an event chair would appear out of the
blue
> and command "You're too loud, get outta here." More likely it would be,
> "George, we've got a problem with your car, It's too loud for our
neighbors.
> What can we do to quiet it down?"
>
>
> >If the event chair at a Tour (or anywhere else) determined a competitor
> has
> >a car making excessive noise - in his opinion - there aren't too many
> people
> >that will try to usurp that decision, in my experience. This isn't a
formal
> >protest being handled by a committee (maybe it should be?). This is
solely
> >one of the responsibilities of the event chair, and at his discretion.
> >
> >Sure, the competitor could lodge a protest with the protest committee,
> >but are there rules in place that allow the Protest Committee to overrule
> >an event chair in this case? I can't find any. (Remember, the car in
> >question IS loud, what is being discussed is how loud is TOO loud?) I
doubt
> >a protest committee would challenge the event chair's discretionary
> >decision unless he was being biased, and other cars equally noisy are
> >allowed to compete.
>
>
> At a Tour or Divisional level, at which the entire rulebook is mandatory,
> there should then be the formal protest procedure in place. And any action
> by an event official is protestable. Yes, IMHO a PC could overrule an
event
> chair's decision that a given car was too loud. Of course, they may also
> agree -- not declining to overrule, but independently agreeing that the
> suspect car was over the line. But again, even with such a finding the
first
> resolution should be an opportunity to quiet the car. The basic premise is
> that the given car is too loud FOR THAT SITE. The nature of Solo
competitors
> being what they are, I'd believe that anyone finding himself in such a
> situation would find plenty of help and advice on suppressing the noise.
>
> Funny thing about event noise -- the last event I attended where event
noise
> became a significant factor irritating the neighbors, it was not cars with
> louder exhaust notes that was the problem. It was all those stockers and
> their SQUEALING TIRES on an asphalt surface that drew the complaints. Man,
> talk about unwinnable! The cars with loud pipes only fired up every now
and
> then, but the tire squeal was constant. When some neighbor complains that
> tire squeal is the irritant, that's a noise impossible to quiet and an
> argument impossible to win.
>
> --Rocky
>
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