Coimbatore: Officials attached to the regional transport office at Mettupalayam on Tuesday caught five tourist buses using air horns and removed the same, along with audio systems, from the vehicles.
The officials had been conducting a drive against air horns for the past few days after growing complaints from the public about the noise pollution caused by it.
Regional transport officer R Thiyagarajan said they decided to do a spot inspection as they found many vehicles plying on Mettupalayam Road were using air horns. “We caught five buses - one at Sirumugai and four on Coimbatore-Mettupalayam road,” he said.
“The air horns are a lot louder than the permitted horns, which have a noise level of 91 decibels. While we have not studied the decibel levels of air horns, if we put a case, we will get the pollution control board to do a study on the same,” the official added.
The drivers, meanwhile, said they were forced to use air horns to make other vehicles and pedestrians to give way for them.