Police target noise, death traps and diesel
Wednesday 16th November 2011, 2:29PM GMT.
Traffic Sergeant John Tostevin with the 50cc motorbike he branded a death trap. (Picture by Jess Stevenson, 1198912)
TRAFFIC officers are to crack down on noise pollution.
The initiative will follow a Guernsey Police force action day this Friday.
As part of that, the road policing unit will be carrying out random checks for ‘red’ or duty-free diesel being used illegally, speed enforcement checks throughout the island and vehicle examinations to ascertain whether illegal modifications have been made, leading to excessive noise.
Scooters at La Mare de Carteret, and possibly other high schools, will also be examined on Friday with pupils and teachers. Traffic Sergeant John Tostevin said the checks were about educating youngsters to stop them being hurt or killed on the roads.
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Hope they start at Rue du Lorier,in this area is a maniac with an unsilenced car who beats up the area in the small hours.But the cops will have to loose some sleep to catch him – he usually moves between 2400hrs and 0200hrs!Can’t imagine why the people living in the area hav’nt done anything!
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I hope this will be the beginning of the end of those ridiculously noisy little mopeds one can hear miles away.
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HEAR, HEAR. Well actually no, I can’t hear, I’ve been deafened by these blasted souped up sewing machines. This issue has been going on for years and it’s about time something was done. The other really annoying issue is badly adjusted headlights blinding you!
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Hurrah, good first step Police traffic division. Now instead of it just being one day (that you publicise before the actual ‘crack down’!) think about diverting other police every other day of the week to check these issues. Clear the streets of these dangerous losers who dice with peoples lives every time they step in their modified bangers! There should be harsh punishments for these idiots.
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Stationing someone at Grande Rue, St Saviour, one mornng might put a stop to the idiot who races (noisily) through at 7.15 every day.
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Don & Fed up
Just in case the Police don’t monitor this forum I’ve managed to find the Police Station number in the phone book … It’s 725111
7-2-5-1-1-1
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About time. Noisy motorbikes are far too common in Guernsey and the sooner these deafening machines are off the roads the better. Also there is a large blue and grey van that backfires every so often, please get rid of that too, it’s louder than a firework!
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Wondering why this was publicised? To catch & warn is good, but follow up check ups without warning needed too!
BTW unmarked police cars etc may catch the poor behaviour of public road users, be they on foot, 2 wheels 4 or more!
Even walking is a nightmare using pavements
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Having publicised this the police will be aware that most of the culprits will have time to organise alternative transport arrangements for school on Friday. However hopefully it is just the start of ongoing spot checks and measures to put an end to this nonsense.
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It is good to see that the police are taking an active stance on road safety (and revenue protection!). Given a lot of poorly maintained, older vehicles will be owned by new drivers/riders I applaud the idea of actively going to the schools to talk to the kids about vehicle safety.
I fear though that a lot of people who think they’re fine will be caught out through a lack of basic maintenance checks on their own vehicles. If I had a pound for every time I see a car with at least one brake light out I’d be a rich man.
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Loud pipes save lives!! If you can hear a motorbike approaching then chances are you wont pull out on it
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A motorbike hasn`t got to be deafeningly loud in order to be heard!
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I ride a GSXR 1000 – factory standard pipes. I just hope that the Police can tell the difference between a manufacturers intended high performance bike and those Hairdryers tried to make sound like a high performance bike.
They always remind we of a 2 yr old that doesn’t want to go anywhere :
“Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh”
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The sound of a highly tuned, properly maintained road bike is actually a pleasure to the ear. It is the deafening, baffle removed hairdriers that are the problem. I am sure the Police are astutue enough to work this one out and eradicate the real problem?
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I applaud the police for publishing this ahead of time. Proper community policing and the way it should be. No one wants to get into trouble and this way people have been given fair warning to get their vehicle fixed. Hopefully some people will take notice and do something about it. This is better for everyone. It saves court/police time leaving them to concentrate on more serious crimes, and also saves tax payers money.
Out of curiosity, if they stop someone to check what diesel they have used, how on earth can they tell if they bought “black market” or “proper” diesel? Don’t they look the same?
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I beleive the “Red diesel” they are looking for is called Red Diesel because it actually is red.
I beleive a dye is added to denote that its tax free. The UK police have done Red diesel spot checks for years.
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Couldn’t anyone put red dye in to avoid getting caught?
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er no! You DON’T want the red in your tank, that’s the whole point! Red diesel is only for agricultural use
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It’s also worth noting that the untaxed diesel stains the fuel tank red permanently.
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@Really
Its a nice thought, daily experience tells me otherwise. Doesnt matter how loud the bike is, whether you ride with lights on and in bright/flourescent gear, Bikes are still ignored by most road users here, and frequently stare at you as they wilfully pull into your path
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I use my ears as well as my eyes. As a biker and car driver I find bikes being louder than cars (as a general rule) quite a good thing in terms of safety. Of course I still get people pull in front of me but you’ll always have the clueless pottering about oblivious to their surroundings.
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I agree Biker…..I wear Yellow and White leathers and ride with my headlight on full beam during the day. I STILL had a stupid woman pull out on me and emergency brake on the Rohais a couple of weeks back. She looked at ME like it was MY fault even though I had approached the Filter first, had my lights on full beam and was wearing the most conspicuous leathers ever!
The sooner that the States pass a law that bikers can stop in the middle of the road and punch the lights out of these idiots that are responsible for so many Bike accidents,the sooner this will stop happening.
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“with my headlight on full beam during the day.”
No wonder she nearly hit you, I’m guessing she was blinded by your headlight being on full beam….!
Please ensure that you ride with your headlight on dip during the day, much safer….
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Ray,
Thank you,you are quite right,one should have more guts on matters like this and do something.I have in the past reported matters that affect us all,and I,m gratified to report action was taken!
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Good news.
Any chance of them tackling the Kev runners racing on their well worn routes that’s been going on for decades as well, bearing in mind that perhaps their actions which could kill or maim someone (and that already has) is just as concerning that the incredible irritation of noisy bikes?
ps. They won’t be racing on Friday til about 10pm, as usual…so you’ll probably miss them…as usual.
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sick and tired of hearing cars like clios , fiesta etc.. with a drain pipe for an exhaust. It aint big and it aint clever driving around at silly o,clock waking up neighbourhoods.Selfish attitude these idiots have.
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kev
I live in a reasonably quiet road and with double glazing,curtains closed and the TV on every car that passes by sounds ‘just like a Golf’
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It doesn’t make sense that excessive noise from factory standard and unmodified machinery is to be disregarded – if noise is excessive then it is excessive whatever the machinery causing it.
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If you don’t like it get some ear plugs!
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If they really want to target noisy means of transport. they would do well to get rid of the Aurigny Trilanders as they make more noise in the upper parishes than any motor bike. has anyone ever measured the actual noise emitted from one of these things on take off or landing. It wouldn’t suprise me if they broke the law.
Well done Blue Islands by the way. Good to see that they’ve consigned theirs to the dustbin of local aviation history.
I guess though, it’ll take a pilot to pass out when flying one of these things before something is done.
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Maybe the Police could find time to target the many mentally challenged bikers that insist on overtaking lines of other law abiding traffic at high speed with no regard for other road users…………….
Oh no, sorry they won’t be able to read the illegal sized dirt covered numberplates because the rear light doesn’t work!
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You’re an idiot…any REAL biker when checking his bike over BEFORE getting on it and travelling ANYWHERE would clear his number plate first. DON’T lump proper road rule obeying Bikers in with all the idiots.
If you want to play it that way then you must be one of those idiots that race up my road on a morning at school times without a thought for the 60% of the inhabitants that have small children families.
Get over yourself,get back in your little plastic bubble and give my regards to Roland Rat, Mr Kevin the Gerbil.
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I suppose it might seem like ‘high speed’ when I pass you (within the speed limit), stuck in a queue of traffic waiting to pass a cyclist doing 10mph.
Just because you can’t pass in your car doesn’t mean I can’t (quite legally) pass you
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Well done Guernsey Police!!! With a mere 150 or so of you I am amazed that you have found the time to perform this ‘crack down’, what with all the other policing in the Island to undertake at the same time…….
Guernsey police are right to publicise these issues and I applaud them (genuinely) for doing it. But to read some of the posts on here you would think they have gone above and beyond the call of duty! Do we really need 150 of them checking our petrol to see if we are using agricultural tax free fuel!!! The fact that nobody was found using it was telling….
The Police need to prioritise – anti social behaviour is the number one concern. I suspect the evasion of fuel duty by a couple of farmers would not be on most of the general public’s top concerns….
Lets make the force more streamlined, relevant and cost effective. Lets not buy any more armoured cars, lets not pretend we are understaffed to protect our own positions and lets take a firm stance on the issues important to the Island.
As an example, I phoned the Police a few months ago after nearly being hit by a car which drove straight through a pedestrian crossing. The Policeman said to me that that was a particularly poorly positioned crossing and that it is up to the pedestrian to make sure there are no cars coming before stepping out. A strange answer I thought. He then went on to explain I could come and make a statement but that the Police were busy with other enquiries so it would not be a priority. I explained that all they had to do was view the CCTV footage in the area and they would easily find the car (Red ‘Kev’ car with a spoiler). The Policeman said there was no chance of a conviction using CCTV evidence alone, and again the police had to prioritise the cases they had on at the moment in time.
The next time a child gets hit by a car using a pedestrian crossing I will mention this to the Police. As a taxpayer I believe that the majority of the public view this much more importantly than evading fuel tax.
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I was crossing the road with my fiance at the Candie/Beau Sejour pedestrian crossing a couple of days ago. I used the Green man and both sets of lights went red, we’d just got to the middle of the road when a car waiting at the lights Beausie side took off and drove through a Red light towards Doyles. It narrowly missed me, if I’d have been a slow moving mum with a push chair and toddler someone would have been killed.
The driver I hear you ask? When I turned round to shout at them at the top of my voice and saw who was behind the wheel – surprise surprise it was an elderly woman of about 80+. Why had she moved off? Because she saw a Green light and thought she could go….
Next time this happens I’m going to throw a very large rock at whatever car does it, I’m also going to make a note of all the vehicle reg plates in the area and submit them to the police as witnesses.
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Theo,you may be right about the noise pollution a Trilander makes but its not as harmful as the atmospheric pollution Blue Islands turbo props make.
A little off topic I know but I feel I must come to the Trilanders defence. A Blue Island Jet Stream burns aprox’ 30% more fuel per seat mile than a Trilander and if you travel inter island on their ATR42 it nearer twice the amount per seat mile.
You can easily check out on line what type of toxins a gas turbine engine pumps out. They are also the highest producers greenhouse gasses per tonne of payload moved than any other machine designed by man apart from rockets designed to put payloads in space and are totally unsuitable for low level inter island travel where they are even less fuel efficient.
Whats preferable, noise pollution, atmospheric pollution. Which Airline do you use, how big is your carbon footprint?
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Blow-in Boy,
Thanks for your kind words, expressing yourself in that manner confirms my theory that some bikers are mentally challenged.
Please let me know where I can find a ‘road rule obeying biker’, must be an endangered species in this island!
Oh, by the way, Gerbils don’t drive.
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Mark,
I’m not referring to the bikers that pass a line of crawling traffic at 10mph, I’m talking about the ‘pass 4 or 5 cars along the coast road at 70mph type’. Quite often with traffic coming in the other direction.
Seems to happen more frequently nowadays.
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Fair enough (though I get the impression you don’t ride a bike so probably have different views on what is a ‘safe’ overtake!)
On the flip side, I see plenty of dangerous and just plain bad driving by car drivers on a regular basis. Some examples of bad behaviour I regularly see are:
Passing cyclists on/just before blind corners (I’ve very nearly had a head on collision because of such lunacy);
Driving on the wrong side of the road (you’re supposed to stay on the left hand side of that white line in the middle of the road), ditto the comment about near head on collisions;
Running red traffic lights (either chasing the last car through or possibly just through being visually challenged)
I could go on, but I won’t ;-)
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I do occasionally ride an Aprilia 50cc scooter but it doesn’t really qualify as a bike!!
You’re quite right, there is some very poor car driving as well, some of which is just careless and in other instances downright dangerous, I think the worst of it tends to be both car and bike riders that carry out risky overtakes usually through a lack of patience.
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How about the mounting of the pavement because your vehicle is slightly wider than a postage stamp and you must mount the kerb at speed just in case the oncoming car jumps out into your path? This practice has got to be the worst on our roads. And yes, there are idiot car drivers too! example, Van driver going round Bridge roundabout, mobile glued to ear with no indication or even knowledge that I was there!
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