§ Major GLYNasked the Home Secretary whether he will consider the advisability of taking extra powers to enable the Metropolitan Police to exercise a greater control by having power to issue summonses against the owners of mechanically-propelled vehicles if they are loaded to such a weight as to involve the risk of a broken axle if, through age or ill-repair, they make such a noise as to be a nuisance to residents or unduly alarming to horses, or if the tyres on the wheels are so warn as to involve damage being done to the road surface; and, in each of these cases, what are the existing maximum permissive limits?
§ Colonel ASHLEYThe axle weights of heavy motor vehicles are arrived at in accordance with the formula contained in an Order made under the Motor Car Act, 1903, the maximum being eight tons on any one axle, and registration authorities have powers conferred upon them, subject to certain restrictions, to cause the axle weight to be checked. Undue noise does not necessarily depend upon the age of a vehicle; on the general question of noise, it has up to the present been impossible to establish a standard, as there are no practicable means of measuring sound values. The question of defective tyres is under consideration in my Department.