Oh, Canada. That’s not me starting to sing their national anthem—more of a sympathetic sigh. Officials really tried to lower the volume of traffic for the citizens of Alberta’s capitol, Edmonton, but instead created the perfect set up to encourage enthusiasts and heroes to rev their engines as loud as possible.
The city is running a pilot program to put “noise cameras” on the streets of Edmonton in order to ticket though with boisterous engines, much like a speeding ticket issued by a speed camera. The city installed eight noise sensors in the already noisiest parts of the city, CTV reports:
Some drivers started competing to set the sound monitoring display boards off by purposefully revving up their engines. An earful of complaints from nearby residents prompted the city to quietly shut down part of the program on Thursday.
In total, the City of Edmonton installed eight photo-radar style systems in the noisiest parts of the city to detect vehicles driving by too loudly. But the ones causing the biggest issues were the four stations with LED boards that showed the decibel levels.
But since the sensors weren’t approved by the provincial legislature for use yet, they couldn’t actual distribute tickets. So all it turned out to be was a display for the noisy victors.
These areas were already known as the noisiest in the city, so a lot of drivers of loud cars too this as a call to action, rather than as a deterrent.
Gerry Shimko, from the office of traffic safety, told CTV that the pilot program is continuing, just without the digital boards. The hope is to keep road noise in residential areas below 85 decibels.
“I think the message will start to get through to people that this kind of anti-social and disrespectful behaviour with loud vehicles is not going to be tolerated anymore in our city,” he told CTV.
Yeah, good luck with that.
Anyone up for an Edmonton trip?