Stereos on Wheels
Who do we hate the most? We hate the guy driving his stereo on wheels as he comes into our space, and he is blasting his sound system, particularly his mega bass. The system cost him many thousands of euros, so he wants to share his sound with everybody he can.
He is grooving on the latest track from his favourite artist and he is absolutely certain that you will appreciate even a short sound bite.
Wrong!
There is not much that beats loud sounds that interrupt our relative peace and quiet to royally piss off most people. Firstly, he is the only one to fully appreciate the full sound. For those of us on the sidewalk we get the bass. We may even get the high notes, and we have to put the rest together in our minds, if we know the song.
One such terrorist from the neighbourhood decided that he wanted all his neighbours in their condos to hear his concert. He waited until evening time when people were having their meal. He opened all the doors of his car, including the boot, and he pumped up the volume that shook people’s plates on the table.
There was much shaking of fists and yelling from the balconies, which he took as “Go man, go!” He couldn’t actually hear what they were saying as the music was blaring. Finally the police were called in and they heard for themselves, and said something like “ Ostraa! That’s bloody loud.” They approached the car and turned the damn thing off and wrote the guy a ticket for deliberately disturbing the peace.
He went to court and was surprised to get a royal ticking off from the judge about respecting the reasonable rights of his neighbours to peace and quiet. He was then given his punishment: a fine of 2,400 euros, and he was advised that the judge had the latitude to vary the fine between 600 euros and 6,000 euros. If he should ever appear before the courts again for a similar offence it would be easy to guess what the fine would be.
Believe it or not, this happened in Valencia, the noise capital of Spain.
Anybody want to buy a secondhand sound system? It’s really good!
Copyright © 2010 Eugene Carmichael
