ABSTRACT
The fall of the Roman Empire heralded an apparent decline in interest in controlling the adverse effects of traffic noise. There appears to be little reference to the problem for many centuries until the invention of the internal combustion engine irrevocably changed the aural landscape. It took only three decades of motor transport to convince the British Government to introduce legislation to control the noise emitted by motor vehicles. A simple act, passed in 1929, predated the invention of any means of measuring noise: it relied on a policeman’s and then the court’s judgement to decide if the offending vehicle was too noisy.1
