A while ago (within the last 6 weeks I think) I read about new police powers in the BR to stop individuals from driving their cars anti-socially or playing loud music etc. However, I cannot find the thread.
Having suffered a night's poor sleep (along with several neighbours) due to some inconsiderate prat who seems to have diappeared off the face of the earth leaving their car alarm going off all the time, I contacted the Police who say there is nothing they can do apart from contact the owner - if they can.
Having said that I asked the question, can these new powers be used by the police to take appropriate action straight away?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
If not, does anyone know how you can open the bonnet of an L reg metro without causing any criminal damage to disconnect the battery?
H
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I think you are referring to Section 59 Police Reform Act 2002
which gives Plod power to seize a vehicle if he has seen it being driven carelessly on road or off road and likely to cause alarm etc and after he has given a warning that has been ignored.
Nothing said about noise but I do know that South Coast Police (Brighton I think) have taken cases of loud car radio music to Court under Con and Use Regs for causing a vehicle to make excessive noise.
Seem to recall reading somewhere EEC Regulation on standards for Alarms that they had to shut down after so long after being activated but cannot come up with a specific offence other that maybe common law nuisance?
May be something under Environmental Health so have a word with the Council Department.
DVD
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Yes, this is an Environmental Health issue - contact your local council to sort it out. In my experience, councils are a lot more assertive about these type of "public nuisance" issues than they were, and you'll probably get some joy out of them. I remember a TV programme a month or two ago following Westminster Env Health officers on a night shift. They actually employ a locksmith to break into cars with false alarms and silence them: wouldn't show us how the guy did it though... He wasn't fat, and I think he was christened James...
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A few months back the alarm of an empty house in the same street as me kept going off at all hours over a period of a month. Within 2 hours of emailing Manchester env health the owner was down, and I had a letter from the env health a few days later.
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"loud car radio music to Court under Con and Use Regs for causing a vehicle to make excessive noise"
I'm surprised it isn't a simple safety issue. It must be difficult to claim full control of a vehicle when you can't hear anything around you.
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I'm surprised it isn't a simple safety issue. It must be difficult to claim full control of a vehicle when you can't hear anything around you.
It's not an offence (yet?) to drive a car if you're deaf AFAIK.
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Just an update,
The car in question has now disappeared, which was a shame as I had spent a few good minutes on a sarcastic note to prit fix to his windscreen!
If the car re appears I can honestly say that it is more likely to suffer damage with the alarm ON rather than OFF.
H
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Date: high summer, 1984. Place: Greenwich Village, Manhattan.
A hot, humid night and around 8 p.m. a car alarm goes off loudly in the street right below our apartment. I look out of the open window and see no-one around the car. False alarm. Now, this was in the days before the alarm manufacturers had thought of auto-shut-off.
After about three hours of continuous siren, we heard that distinctive sound that car panels make when someone is beating them hard with a baseball bat, followed by the roar of approval from all the apartments in the street. Every panel had been severely whacked but no broken glass. The alarm was still going off.
At 12:30 a.m. the alarm suddenly dies and the silence was deafening. The now-distraught owner had returned. I go down to give him a piece of my mind and while I am talking to him beside his wrecked, brand new, 3-series BMW I get caught in the crossfire of two dozen raw eggs that came raining down.
Springsteen had just released Born in the U.S.A. and I had been in Manhattan for 10 days...
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"It's not an offence (yet?) to drive a car if you're deaf"
Point taken, although it must be a lot more difficult. Also, it's not the same as being surrounded by deafening noise, even if that noise is (alleged) music. You try reverse parking with the volume turned right up!
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Had a case locally where the Police had sought guidence under the 2002 Act for the exact same circumstance. The ca needs to be moving and occupied.
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A car alarm sounding falsly can be a statutory nuisance under the Environmental Protection Act. This wil be dealt with (as has been said before) by Environmental Health Officers at your local council.
Depending on their procedures it is likely that they will witness the noise, determine whether it is a nuisance, if so determined they will most likely place an abatement notice on the vehicle requiring the owner to stop the alarm, they will also have to make reasonable endeavours to find the registered owner. If these fail to stop the alarm, they will get a contractor to disable the alarm at the owners expense, or may even tow the vehicle away if the alarm cannot be silenced.
the only involvement of the police will be when the contractor disables the alarm or when it is towed away.
It is a similar procedure for house alarms. On this subject a friend of mine had to investigate a house alarm which was sounding intermittently. She contacted the neighbours, one of which had been given keys to the empty property while the occupiers were on holiday. On attempting to gain entry with the keys, they found the occupiers had bolted the only door they had keys for so therefore could not get in.
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I am reminded of another story, which I have always liked. As a close relaive is involved I can vouch for its authenticity.
Several years ago we lived in a remote country house in the home counties. Our immediate neigbours consisted of a country house hotel, a bungalow set in large gardens with its own 4 acre field and a farm across the road that had been bought by a multi millionaire.
The farm was basically put in the hands of a manager who seemed oblivious to the wealfare of his neigbours, indeed this was evident from the 24 hour use of an audiable scarecrow (a gas powered device that emitted shot gun like bangs to scare away birds from the freshly sewn seed).
After several complaints to the local police, who oblidged as much as they could by going to have a word with the manager in question, didn't work; my mother, who was not a force to be reckoned with, traced this device inside the farm and switched it off.
The farm manager was apparently away at the time and had no idea that this device had been disabled. You can imagine the fury he must have felt when he returned and found that the birds had most likely made off with a sizable quantity of seed.
The local copper came to see us to ask how things were with regard to the nuisance, and when my mother told him she just took matters into hand and disabled it, he congratulated her saying it was nice to see people doing things for themselves!
We never had noise problems from that farm again!
H
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