Road Noise from Motor Vehicles in Europe

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Proposal for a Regulation on the Sound Level of Motor Vehicles (12 gage pdf, Commission Staff Working Paper- Executive Summary of the Impact Assessment, Dec. 9, 2011)

The focus today is on a new proposal to reduce by 25% the vehicle noise which impacts the health of almost 21 million citizens of European cities. Past efforts to accomplish this have little success because of the introduction of wider noiser tires, increasing urban traffic and the slow transition from noisy to more modern quieter vehicles- despite the advent of electric vehicles which are soundless (but represent less than 5% of the cars on the road) . The situation is summed up by this quote: “After air pollution, noise is the biggest environmental health problem in Europe”.

To see Key Quotes and Links to key reports about this post, click HERE