I THINK the time has arrived when we need to seriously consider the effects of "over the counter" fireworks have on our daily lives, not to forget animals, whether domestic pets or those in the wild. Over the last few nights we have been subjected to the indiscriminate use of fireworks, and to an extent those of garden family use ... but the noise produced by some of these is frankly anti-social, especially when still used late at night, and in some instances past midnight. Very young children can be distressed at the noise and some animals display outright fear; animals have more sensitive hearing than most humans. Surely now there should be some limitation on the volume of noise produced by these fireworks available to the public and indeed a curfew on their use.
The town of Collecchio in the province of Parma in Italy has now legislated that citizens must use silent fireworks. There is a company that manufactures fireworks with the same spectacular displays but not the deafening noise.
No way am I wishing to limit the enjoyment that families get from home displays, but I do think that the anti-social element requires that these devices are limited in noise produced and when they can be used.
Iain Lyall,
37 Burnblea Street, Hamilton.
I READ with interest your report on the use of sonic devices in some railway stations to deter and disperse teenage gangs gathering there and disturbing legitimate passengers (“Three stations are using sonic boxes to move on youth”, The Herald, November 3).
I also note the concern and opposition expressed by international human rights bodies and also Bruce Adamson, Children and Young People’s Commissioner, Scotland. Apparently anti-loitering devices are “a breach of young people’s human rights”. Try as I might, I could find no reference to the rights of normal, regular, everyday passengers being breached by gangs of youths intent on nothing less than harassment and vandalism, but there you are.
One of the objections to their use is that such devices are “indiscriminate or inhumane”, affecting youths whether they are misbehaving or not. This seems to overlook the function of a railway station which, I understand, is for the purpose of catching or alighting from a train, a function of a matter of a few minutes. As far as I am aware these devices are activated only when anti-social behaviour is taking place and seem to me a perfectly legitimate method of dispersing trouble. It appears to me that there is a quite reasonable solution; don’t congregate in railway stations or other public service areas for the purpose of harassing others.
Mr Adamson’s attitude is symptomatic of the problems society faces today. He is one of a number who seek to protect the so-called rights of a minority who are intent on disrupting the legitimate rights of the majority. One is entitled to ask what rights gangs bent on disorder have that supersede the rights of the travelling public going about its everyday business, and what measures does Mr Adamson propose to ensure that public rights of normal regular usage of railway stations and the like are maintained free and open without intimidation?
RH Buntin,
G/F1 Morland House,
Longhill, Skelmorlie.
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