KEEP THE NOISE DOWN

"When the Earth appeared on the screens, Evans grew uneasy, scrambled to his feet and shook his head. And when we were 1,000 miles from the surface, he suddenly shivered and shouted: 'Noise!  What a horrible noise!' - dashed aft, got into his shuttle, shot off from the spacecraft and reportedly disappeared in the direction we had come from."

The American sci-fi writer John Holbrook Vance (Jack Vance) wrote a story called Noise in 1952, in which a space traveller crashes and lands on a planet whose inhabitants he cannot perceive visually, while their speech sounds like music to him. The protagonist periodically sends SOS signals to the Earth, but becomes so fascinated with the unusual beauty and immaterial phenomena of the planet that when he is finally rescued, he suddenly takes a decision which surprises his rescuers and goes back. And, if Evans survives, he will forever remain a recluse on that planet to escape the noise which reigns on the planet Earth.

Of course, the story is just the lucky discovery of a plot by an author who pinpointed a problem which, it seems, began to concern mankind long before the now-distant year of 1952 - a time when man was not yet spoiled by the most intricate discoveries of technical progress and when it was possible to find quiet places, even if those places were inhabited.

Antisocial behaviour

With the advancement of technical progress, one trend becomes increasingly marked: new technological developments increase human influence on the environment and this is accompanied by noise. First and foremost, this is observed in industry and transport. We encounter the terror of noise on a daily basis at home, in the office, in the car and in recreation areas, day and night, especially if, nearby, there is an around-the-clock construction project underway which contravenes all conceivable norms and rules. The noise of the city is noticeably tiring. But Europeans, Americans, Chinese and many other peoples have managed to find an acceptable solution to this problem at a legislative level; developing countries, Azerbaijan among them, unfortunately do not yet cultivate a culture of safeguarding peace and quiet for their citizens.

Even despite the fact that the Milli Maclis introduced on 7 January 2008 additions and amendments to the law 'On Environmental Safety', which set new rules and increased fines, up to 1,000 times the notional financial unit for individuals and up to 50,000 times the notional financial unit for legal entities, in order to regulate the levels of vibration and noise which adversely affect the environment and health. There remain questions as to how effective these restrictions are if there is not a single instance yet of holding "noisy" violators accountable, either in government statistical data, or in the records of the Environment and Natural Resources Ministry and traffic violations logs.  At the same time, according to the Administrative Code, a fine of AZN 16 to AZN 22 - a sum that is of course purely symbolic and unlikely to deter anyone - is imposed for wrongful use of sound signals in Azerbaijan.

Antisocial behaviour is becoming the norm in our country and there are plenty of examples.  Numerous banquet halls with their daily wedding parties, small restaurants on the ground floors of residential buildings, or in the streets, neighbours, construction sites - there are various irritants that bother different people. Car radios switched on at full volume, recording studios nearby - or, worse yet, inside residential buildings - non-standard car horn tones also create quite a lot of discomfort.  Not to mention that the use of non-standard car horns by some motorists has only one purpose - to announce their presence to others. You walk in the street and suddenly you hear a very loud Homeric laugh which reminds you of horror movies like A Nightmare on Elm Street, or a piglet's screech, or the takeoff of a jet fighter, or the roaring of a Formula 1 race car, and so on. You can sense that those unscrupulous motorists are clearly pleased that they can use these types of devices and they do not care that someone is trying to sleep, is ill, or on the verge of nervous breakdown in one of the apartments.

And somehow there are too many people of this sort. And all this is takes place against the backdrop of the permanent noise of the city, which is more or less justifiable. But it is very hard to justify people who start to behave worse than primitives in society by honking their horns and showing off the attributes of their "prosperous lives." So where did our culture and humanity lose their way? Is it not expedient to recall a statement by the well-known Russian satirist, Mikhail Zadornov, that "man is just a monkey who has made a career?" The satirist is certainly right about some members of our society.

Noise is a health hazard

Everyone who has ever visited Europe knows: peace and quiet there are guarded by special laws under which those people who like to make noise are punished. For yelling, bad language, loud music - any noise that exceeds a certain number of decibels, whether at home, in the street or at work - you can get a very steep fine. And in some cases, when noise reaches hazardous levels, you might even be imprisoned. In contrast to us, the Europeans safeguard their quiet. And not even so much out of fear of serious punishment as out of the habit of not causing discomfort to their neighbours.

Noise is a problem which is pressing all over the world. Doctors and researchers publish paper after paper in which they find a correlation between noise and cardiovascular, neurological and psychiatric illness. The need for silence has become a global problem. "Even the loud conversations of neighbours in apartment blocks are perceived as unpleasant irritants that obstruct rest. Alas, the disturbers are not always inclined to listen to their neighbours' requests to observe silence. In the meantime, nervous stress might cause not only a number of severe illnesses, but also job-related injuries and accidents due to stress-related inattention," says occupational health specialist Professor Mahmud Qasumov. The level of noise is measured in decibels (dB). The decibel is the unit of noise intensity. Comfortable environments should have noise levels that do not exceed 30 dB in rest and recreation premises and 40 dB in other premises. This level of noise is practically harmless to the human body and constitutes an environmentally safe norm.

Alas, in practice we are surrounded by much louder noise background than the health care specialists' approved 30-40 dB. Noise limits for residential premises in Azerbaijan are set by sanitary norms which were first developed by the Moscow F.F. Erisman Research Institute of Hygiene and approved by the Soviet Health Ministry in 1960. In 1965, these norms were appended. A limit was set for residential areas. Environmental norms are mandatory for all the ministries, departments and organizations which design, build or maintain residential or public buildings, make urban development plans, plans for larger development areas, residential buildings, blocks, communications lines and so on, and for organizations which design, manufacture and operate means of transportation, engineering and maintenance equipment for buildings and household equipment. These organizations must keep these norms in mind and take the necessary measures to reduce noise intensity to the levels set by existing standards.

Milli Maclis press service head Akif Nasirov told R+ that given the pace of urban development, the increasing size and speed of construction projects and the growing number of the cars in the country, it is natural that new sources of noise will emerge and the intensity of noise which is generated by existing sources will increase. "The important point in protecting people from noise, including traffic noise, is strict observation of the limits set. That is why there are plans to introduce norms which will stipulate that residential buildings should be built at a specified distance from highways and from sports and other facilities. Parks and green squares, the height of buildings and their layout - all these play their roles."

The development of restrictions on traffic at night, especially through residential districts and the introduction of modern noise protection technology in road and bridge building should be given special attention, the specialist believes.

Maharram Mehdiyev, consultant at the environmental department of the Environment and Natural Resource Ministry, said that noise reduction means, at the same time, better public health and better working, resting and living standards. Great experience has been accumulated in the world in this area. For instance, to choose and use more effective ways and means of safeguarding a quiet environment, almost every European city has its "noise map." This is created from the measurement of decibel levels in the streets and on highways, studies of traffic conditions and plans for increases in traffic intensity - the nature of traffic, both present and future.

As for the issue of vibration, although this is associated with noise, it nonetheless requires separate regulation. Mr. Mehdiyev noted that the need for different sets of regulations stems from the fact that sources maybe different and the means of distribution of the two effects are also different; but there is no need to "reinvent the wheel" here. It would suffice to adopt the best technology used in the world as protection against influences that are harmful to both physical and mental health.

Punishable by law

In the meantime, the installation and operation of non-standard car horns is banned by Article 74 of the law 'On traffic 'Rules', Police Lieutenant Colonel Vaqif Asadov, head of the public relations department of Baku Traffic Police, told R+.  He said that, knowing how profitable it is to sell horns, some people import non-standard horns to Azerbaijan from all over the world. "What we are dealing with here is manufacture in small workshops. No factory makes horns that sound like human laughter or a dog's bark."  Lt. Col. Asadov said that the police are working all the time to prevent the use of non-standard horns and, when they are found, the police remove them from the vehicle and fine the drivers.

"The police also check the type of horn during the annual technical checks. But some drivers cautiously remove them before the test and reinstall them after the procedure," he stressed.  Incidentally, even standard horns should not be used except in certain situations.

"For example, the drivers of wedding-day motorcades block off the entire width of the road and honk their horns, thereby grossly violating traffic rules. I understand that a wedding is an important event and that there are traditions. But people must realize that making noise in the city is not allowed, these traditions are only good for rural areas," he noted. Lt. Col. Asadov stressed that the frequent use of horns, both standard and non-standard, has a negative effect on the psychological condition of individuals. "In traffic jams, horns irritate people more than the jam itself," he said. At the same time, Lt. Col. Asadov said that installing loudspeakers on cars is also against the law and they are mostly found on small local-route minibuses. "When they are spotted, the vehicle is sent to the parking area and after the loudspeaker has been removed, the owner takes back his minivan."

It can be said that Azerbaijan has quite a modern regulatory framework of bylaws for the prevention of noise and vibration. But this does not mean that offenders are always held accountable. And if Azerbaijani motorists were 100% certain that they were going to be punished, they would not behave as they do. The same is true about other sources of noise: after all, noise is always created by people.

There is also a major gap: Azerbaijan has no immediately applicable law that would regulate the protection of people and environment from excessive noise. It is high time to adopt a separate law to protect the citizens, districts and the environment from the harmful effects of noise, especially as their adverse effect on the health of the population is increasing all the time.

In many countries, there are laws which limit the effects of noise on public health, especially in hospitals, resorts, recreation areas, hotels, boarding schools, construction sites, airports, airfields and heliports. These laws enable many major cities around the world to pass bylaws which ban harmful noise. There are such laws in Germany, France, Italy, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Slovakia and the United States. To enforce these laws, roughly 1% of GDP [as published] is spent on combating noise in the West. This includes special glass and special sound screens in buildings. The developed countries of Europe spend about 40 billion euros a year for this purpose. And if Azerbaijan realizes the need for similar arrangements, there is a lot of work to do. The European Parliament passed laws on noise which are based on the "polluter pays" principle. Every resident who suffers from noise may go to court and sue the polluters for compensation for damages arising from noise.

In Azerbaijan, virtually no one is fined for noise. Researchers who work in this field believe that legal mechanisms are needed here, otherwise none of the latest achievements in soundproofing, none of the latest materials will ever be in demand: no one will want to spend money on noise reduction if people can get away with it.