Thursday 27 September 2018
Hansard of the Legislative Council

Launceston - Motorcycle Noise Restrictions - Infringements

[2.37 p.m.]
Mr FINCH question to LEADER of the GOVERNMENT in the LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL, Mrs HISCUTT

Leader, Three years ago I posed questions about the enforcement of motorcycle noise restrictions in Launceston.  Excessive noise is still an annoying problem in central Launceston.  How many infringement notices have police issued since my original questions in September 2015?

ANSWER

Mr President, I thank the member for Rosevears for his question.  Noisy vehicles understandably cause common community concern, not only for its nuisance value, but in some cases for the safety concerns posed by these vehicles.  The issue of infringement notices is one of a number of options available to police in response to noisy vehicles.  Tasmania Police have a range of measures available, including infringement notices, defect notices, warnings and official cautions issued to the drivers of the noisy vehicles.

A vehicle operated in such a manner as to cause excessive noise may also be committing other traffic offences that people may associate with hooning.  In those cases, the vehicle may be seized. 

Police have issued the following numbers of infringement notices for the traffic offences involving unlawful noise committed by motorcycle riders in the Launceston local government area since 24 September 2015:  from 25 September 2015 to 24 September 2016, four infringement notices were issued; from 25 September 2016 to 24 September 2017, seven notices were issued; and from 25 September 2017 to 24 September 2018, one notice was issued.

The source of these figures comes from the Fines and Infringement Notices Database dated 24 September 2018.  There are three notes I should read with these -

(1)    Statistics for 2018 may be incomplete because the data has not had time to settle.

(2)    All noise-related offences on traffic infringement notices were considered for the query.  Only one offence type accounted for all the infringement notices listed above:  start vehicle or drive causing unnecessary noise/smoke, section 291 of the Road Rules 2009.  Note that this offence may pertain to smoke rather than noise and it is not possible to make this distinction statistically.

(3)    Motorcycles were separated from other vehicles using the vehicle type recorded in the system.