As soon as Amman and the Jordanian cities wake up, the noise becomes louder and noise spreads everywhere, announcing the start of a new day in the Jordanian way, where the noise dominates all the voices calling for the need for calm to preserve the mental health of citizens.
While the street chaos subsides in the winter, it is more disturbing in the summer, when fireworks, processions of weddings and graduates, as well as street vendors and children who narrow the sides of the neighborhoods, and the traffic that does not calm down until the early hours of dawn, announcing a short truce, and then soon For Oman specifically to return to a daily hell for its inhabitants.
Laws set the permissible sound levels in residential areas of cities at 60 decibels during the day and 50 at night. And in residential areas in the suburbs, at 55 by day and 45 by night, but on the ground it is much more than that.
Laws do not apply
The laws dealing with this phenomenon are crowded, namely the Jordanian Traffic Law, the Environmental Protection Law, the instructions for limiting and preventing noise, the instructions for wedding halls, and the instructions for organizing fireworks companies, but they are not activated, and they do not contribute to preventing all manifestations of noise in Jordan and which is increasing day by day. else.
The Central Traffic Department classifies noise as one of the environmental problems of contemporary society, caused by industrial activities and means of transportation, and talks about its significant and harmful impact on human psychological and nervous life, as some of them lead to permanent hearing impairment, or injury to the middle ear and may cause internal damage. .
And between the noise of vehicles, constructions, buildings and commercial and human activities such as celebrations, many stakeholders call for spreading awareness through various media about noise and its dangerous effects, in addition to introducing the environmental dimension in school curricula, the need to keep schools and hospitals away from sources of noise, and applying the necessary legislation to reduce and noise prevention.
Some laws, such as the Traffic Law, stipulate penalties for impounding vehicles, paying fines, and imprisonment for one week for anyone who makes noise through his vehicle. The Environmental Law also guarantees citizens protection from noise pollution with financial penalties and imprisonment for violators. It is forbidden to use loudspeakers at wedding parties that are held in open areas, and noisy construction works between eight in the evening and six in the morning are prohibited, and fireworks are prohibited after ten in the night.
But all this remains ink on paper with what Jordanians suffer daily in the markets and streets, which are not without loudspeakers in the cars of street vendors, gas cylinders sellers, scrap dealers, and the list goes on.
Problem or personal freedom?
According to observers, most homes in the capital, Amman, overlook and approach the main streets, causing their residents to suffer from car noises whose level exceeds 80 decibels.
A study conducted by the University of Jordan indicates that the cities of Zarqa and Irbid suffer more from noise than the capital, Amman, where there are many celebration halls, workshops and industrial areas.
Jordanians resort to circumventing this noise in several unsuccessful ways, such as installing double-insulated glass, but with most homes devoid of insulation, the problem remains, and even includes physical and health diseases that doctors monitor, such as high blood pressure, nervous tension problems, sleep disorders, anxiety and fatigue.
Specialists monitor internationally accepted sound levels, which are 25-40 dB in residential areas, 30-60 in commercial areas, 40-60 in industrial areas, 30-40 in educational areas and 20-35 in hospital areas.
Engineer Jabr Daradkeh of the Ministry of Environment acknowledges the weak control over noise violations, and focuses more on air pollution and the environment, but he points to upcoming campaigns in this regard, while other officials talk about the absence of a societal culture that sees noise as personal freedom and not a problem.
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Solution
While the complaint was absent from noise during the periods of the comprehensive ban in the Corona pandemic, the concerned authorities monitored in 2020 about 580 violations, the most prominent of which were pictures of cars selling gas cylinders in neighborhoods around the clock, and to solve this problem, the Ministry of Energy is launching a smartphone application to request cylinders. Gas instead of noise from distributors.
The economic expert, Dr. Abdul Rahman Al-Balbisi, proposes several solutions in this context, such as placing barriers to isolate the noise of roads and railways, planning air transport and airports to be at the outskirts of cities, and increasing green spaces within cities.
Al-Balbisi points out that awareness in Jordan of this type of environmental pollution and its effects on human health is still weak, despite the increase in noise causes such as car exhaust, motorcycles, shooting and fireworks on occasions, street vendors, barking dogs kept inside homes, and finally planes. Tourist helicopter.