Reader's Letter: Am I alone in thinking?

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There is nothing new in groups of photographers capturing images of top of the range cars and especially sports cars and performance uprated saloon cars.

We live in a free country, and I guess these photographers are the modern version of train spotters. Indeed, they have made our village famous in attracting car owners from far and wide who wish to be photographed. Alderley cannot be alone in this activity.

However, surely they are not entitled to put on a show of over revving, indeed often screaming their engines, backfiring crescendos whilst racing from the village to put on a show of bravado. (see Youtube : Best of Supercar and Tuner Car Sounds at Alderley Edge )

This hedonistic behaviour is now becoming a serious noise problem to those who shop or live in the vicinity or the A34, especially on weekends and bank holidays, adding unnecessary pollution for us all.

The decibel level must contravene the Public Spaces Protection Order. I am not a kill joy but this activity is for a designated race track not for our public highway.

Share your views via the comment box below.

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Comments

Here's what readers have had to say so far. Why not add your thoughts below.

Jonathan Follows
Tuesday 2nd June 2020 at 2:32 pm
What Public Space Protection Order? There is no PSPO in force for Alderley Edge. Are you suggesting that one be established?

"If you require any further information in relation to public space protection orders, please use the contact details below:

Anti-Social Behaviour Team
Partnerships Office
Floor 3
Divisional Police HQ
Civic Centre
Crewe
CW1 2DQ
email:
phone: 0300 123 5030"
John Andrew
Tuesday 2nd June 2020 at 2:38 pm
Is there not a greater problem with the speed they go through the village,where are the police.
Clive Elliott
Tuesday 2nd June 2020 at 2:46 pm
I agree wholeheartedly Martin. It is anti-social behaviour and more importantly dangerous given some of the speeds. What are the Council/Police doing about it please Craig?
Brian Etchells
Tuesday 2nd June 2020 at 2:48 pm
It is not just at weekends. It is every day (more at weekends). Along Macclesfield Road (Over Alderley) and up Chelford Road from Prestbury. Not only is it noisy, the speed that they travel is dangerous.

It is only a matter of time before somebody gets killed.

Around the Edge area, lots of people are discovering the beautiful walks. With Hare Hill being closed, more people are walking along the road.
Richard Holman
Tuesday 2nd June 2020 at 2:55 pm
I wholeheartedly agree. It was particularly bad on Sunday May 31 and we live several hundred yards away. One of the problems is that a group of young men congregate at the entrance to Ryleys Lane with cameras and the drivers are only too happy to oblige.
David Carey
Tuesday 2nd June 2020 at 3:01 pm
Taking photos is certainly not a crime providing the supercar owners drive sensibly and dont speed up or slow down dramatically in traffic and over rev their cars. Unfortunately, when the car owners see the crowd of people taking photos, they play to the crowd and do all of the above which is very dangerous as I found at a week ago at the top of Ryleys Lane.
I had stopped my bicycle to have a brief rest at the war memorial, only to see the group all point towards Wilmslow, a white sports car revved its engines loudly and then proceeded to race down Ryleys Lane past me crossing onto the wrong side of the road at 60mph almost hitting a young family with children who were cycling up to the junction quite innocently.
I waited another few minutes to see if this was a one-off, but within minutes three more high powered sports cars came over the bridge and one by one they stopped the traffic behind them stone dead as they posed to allow more photos, before driving into Piccolinos, I could see the motorists behind them were not impressed by their antics in having to wait for the floorshow to end.
Their is another serious issue here in that the crowd of people always stand very close together, so what's happened to social distancing rules. Without stating the obvious I will be suprised if Cheshire Police can do anything to stop this, they will have to when someone gets seriously injured or worse still killed by these crazy and inconsiderate activities.
Alan Brough
Tuesday 2nd June 2020 at 3:03 pm
I'd ask those who think car noise is not a problem to view the following link and then multiply it by virtually every hour of every sunny weekend day.

Perhaps then you might realise that this isn't just a bunch of stick-in-the-muds moaning for the sake of it.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCENQc8_cHrUfiEV4oG0Qc5A
Stephen Maynard
Tuesday 2nd June 2020 at 3:14 pm
It incredible that what with the expensive CCTV system installed in the village that the Police don’t take the footage of these cars speeding through the village - the evidence on camera is enough to prosecute any motorist as the police do this all the time so from an actual cctv video they should be able to see the footage and car number plates land go after the owner/driver with this evidence - even if it’s to give a caution- that is if the CCTV system is actually working
Heather Wienholt
Tuesday 2nd June 2020 at 3:40 pm
Alan Brough, your post sums it up perfectly.
David Smith
Tuesday 2nd June 2020 at 3:43 pm
Thanks for your post Martin.
I have read it a few times and am still not completely sure whether you are against this socially disruptive 'pain in the arse' display of noise from the owners of expensive vehicles - but think you are writing of your disapproval.
I have mentioned this nuisance a few times in the past in the local social media but not had much interest from our councillors - some of whom tell us in their election manifestos how they are going to make Wilmslow a better place to live - and the odd resident, one of whom thought it was just the sort of activity that we all get up to at a certain age!
I think were are all now much more aware of the racket because we have been blessed with such peace and quiet during the Covid-19 lockdown when the roads have been so quiet and we can enjoy the birdsong!
I went out the other night to see who might be making the noise and it appears to be split between flash cars similar to the blue the one in your posting and a variety of high powered motorbikes.
The A34 is attractive to these moronic boy racers because they can whiz past and cut up other motorists at close quarters. They can skilfully navigate the roundabouts that are beautifully spaced at regular intervals and so allow them to go down the gears with accompanying exhaust racket as though they are on some city racetrack. After all going fast for miles on a straight, flat road, all on your own with nobody to scare or show off to is pretty boring after a while.
The speed limit is 70mph between M&S/Tesco and Wilmslow, which means that these drivers are probably decelerating through the gears from nearer 80mph. The speed limit along the A34 varies and could be reduced along this stretch of road to 40mph with speed cameras and thereby remove the opportunity to generate noise to the same level. Councillor Goldsmith believes that reducing the speed limit will increase the number of accidents elsewhere so not much hope of having our elected councillors do something.
Going through the gears whilst decelerating is just a way of putting more stress on the transmission and gearbox but I guess if you can afford such an exotic car you aren’t too bothered about that. Not perhaps such good news for the next owner.
There is also another example of the owners of these sorts of cars. I recently thanked a traffic warden in Wilmslow for just doing her job and helping to keep the roads more free of those who think they can park wherever they like and sod the rest of us who live here. She told me of a known football player who always parked his flash Ferrari (or similar vehicle) IN the bus stop bay in Alderley Edge. She always issued a ticket and he always came running outside waving a few £20 notes and saying how he would settle the penalty there and then. Just another example of someone who thinks that rules are for others and not themselves.
Anyone else with suggestions for sorting out this noise nuisance?
Mark Eden
Tuesday 2nd June 2020 at 7:10 pm
Why not form a group of Yellow Vests and protest? Block the road. Cause a stink. Will be happy to join you as these morons make my life a misery. That would get our Police out.......but of course only to arrest us as we would be breaking the law by blocking the road.
Guy Lightowler
Wednesday 3rd June 2020 at 7:50 am
Just like the Readers Letter, I'm no kill-joy. And most posers seem to be very respectful of the village speed limit, albeit creating a bit of a racket when giving the photographers a revving treat. However when they get to us at Nether Alderley, the general assumption is that the speed limit doesn't apply. At the speeds we are seeing once the road straightens out up the A34, it is surely a matter of time before there is a serious accident - probably taking out kids from Nether Alderley Primary School in the week, or cyclists and walkers crossing between Welsh Row and Artists Lane in the evenings and weekends. I understand that the Council and Police have been approached many times over the years, but need a few deaths before their criteria are met to take action....
Kelvin Briggs
Wednesday 3rd June 2020 at 11:02 am
Chelford Road approaching Great Warford where the speed limit is 40 mph is another speeding location.
Our local Speedwatch Group are keen to get active soon to identify the cars and motor bikes that regularly ignore the speed limit and pass on the results to our local PCSO.
As far as London Road, Alderley Edge is concerned, the Parish Council funded CCTV must capture some footage?
Would be good to receive regular feedback on what it’s picked up in recent times and how valuable an investment it has been in supporting the Police identify not only motoring offences but also crime. The last report I can find in Feb 2019.
David Hadfield
Wednesday 3rd June 2020 at 11:08 am
This council seem more interested in "equality" and spending money where it's not needed.
They need to concentrate on the more important issues instead of snowflake nonsense.
Brian Trafford
Wednesday 3rd June 2020 at 3:32 pm
As your readers have witnessed this parade of boy racers through alderley edge is out of control. Last weekend 40 to 50 cars drove in one line down Congleton road, engines screaming. Before there is a breakdown in law and order the authorities will have to take action.
Letitia Burke
Friday 5th June 2020 at 7:49 am
When walking into the village at the crossing Congleton Road/Macclesfield Road by the Trafford Arms you take your life in your hands literally trying to cross as traffic coming at you from all directions!!! We must have a pelican crossing here asap to make this junction safe as it’s only a matter of time before a fatality occurs!! As for the speeding super cars if you install calming measures this would go a long way to aleviate the problem as the majority of these can’t negotiate speed bumps if installed on Congleton Road! Also the speed monitors are totally ignored on Heyes Lane and Congleton Road and should be replaced with a proper deterrent ie speed cameras!
David Smith
Friday 5th June 2020 at 9:18 am
DAVID HADFIELD:
What on earth are you taiking about?
You write in riddles that I would suggest not many reaaders understand.
Please elaborate [explain more clearly and in detail] the specific points you are making - otherwise you come across as incapable of making a valuable contribution to any discussion.
Too many [is this you too?] converse in the real world as if they are on Twitter/Facebook - where not being able to develop a sound point of view is the norm and so display 'fake' opinions. So many of us are happy to denigrate President Trump for his Twitter ramblings and yet seem to copy his style of communication elsewhere!
David Hadfield
Friday 5th June 2020 at 9:46 am
DAVID SMITH;
Do I really have to spell it out for you ……
This council spend more time and effort over trivia instead of understanding REAL problems, such as the supercars racing around the village every weekend.

I made my comments quite simple and to the point.

However, it seems you are incapable of understanding what people write, such as Martin Wienholt writing about supercars in the village.
He made it quite clear what his thoughts were in the third paragraph of his article ;
This is what he said …

"Surely they are not entitled to put on a show of over revving, indeed often screaming their engines, backfiring crescendos whilst racing from the village to put on a show of bravado" ……...… and then he said ;

"This hedonistic behaviour is now becoming a serious noise problem to those who shop or live in the vicinity or the A34, especially on weekends and bank holidays, adding unnecessary pollution for us all.
The decibel level must contravene the Public Spaces Protection Order. I am not a kill joy but this activity is for a designated race track not for our public highway"

Then you tell Martin you've read his original article a few times but you're not completely sure if he's against this socially disruptive display ?

How much more information do you need ?
Roy West
Saturday 6th June 2020 at 9:55 am
The legal limit for exhaust noise level is 74 decibels and week by week these morons are going way beyond these figures with their repeated revving in front of the young spectators. If this is correct then why are our police force taking no action as this can only get worse since the whole matter has been published on the BBC news! A Police presence on the Chelford Road junction would show that they are at last taking some notice of our complaints.
David Smith
Sunday 7th June 2020 at 10:17 am
DAVID HADFIELD:
Start again and read all my comments. You will then see that I am in agreement with Martin Wienholt and his stance Against these noise nuisance owners of flash cars. Their influence and noise pollution affects areas of Wilmslow bordered by the A34 further away than you think. My initial reply to Martin's letter was that he started off in support of the taking of photographs of these 'noise freaks’ that seems a bit ambivalent. It would be better not to support or encourage this admiration by young lads who can only grow up with an allegiance to this antisocial behaviour and believe that a flash car is to be 'enjoyed' rattling around the local narrow roads in a manner that leaves a small margin for error with the higher risk of a serious accident happening that will involve pedestrians or cyclists that are now more prevalent since the Covid situation.
Your last comment...
“This council seem more interested in "equality" and spending money where it's not needed. They need to concentrate on the more important issues instead of snowflake nonsense.”
...is pretty vague to me. Equality/not neeed/important issues all mean nothing unless you elaborate on what they mean to YOU. Then what on earth is snowflake nonsense?
You seem to speak in riddles and then expect others to understand exactly what you mean.
So I repeat: I am in agreement with Martin Wienholt's letter and all those who support this stance.
However - What on earth are you talking about? You write in riddles that I would suggest not many readers understand.
Verity Williams
Monday 8th June 2020 at 7:53 am
This ‘issue’ needs clarification and often gets muddied with people throwing in various different underlying problems and assumptions under ‘supercars in AE’. It’s important to distinguish between supercars, boy racers, and obnoxious drivers. A lot of supercars in AE are driven as passively through the village as the next Micra. In that and similar videos, much of the obnoxious driving is done in boy racers, cars that are not remotely supercars. So this is not necessarily a ‘supercar issue’. It’s a ‘car issue’.

However, can people please be specific about the underlying cause of their complaints? As not all solutions will fix the various problems. The reader’s letter is all about noise, with a passing mention of racing. Yet speed, and assumptions of safety, are often bandied into the responses. So what needs to be addressed? Is it the noise? Or the stunts? Or speeding? Or that many longer term AE residents don’t like population changes to the village and scapegoating ‘supercars’ is an indirect way to target them?

If it’s noise, speed calming measures won’t achieve anything. The drivers will just rev at lower speeds. Along with the PSPO suggestion, maybe look at banning idling engines, too.

The stupid stunts on public roads deserve police attention. But again, they’re not undertaken by the majority of genuine supercar drivers. Plus they’re rare, I’ve never seen one in person.

If it’s speeding, and the issue is simply breaking the law, put a camera up at the necessary spot.

If it’s speeding with the underlying assumption of safety, speeding isn’t related to many accidents in the village. Of 27 accidents in AE from Sept 2016-19, only 1 had speeding as a contributing factor (3.7%). So 96.3% of accidents happened WITHIN the speed limit. As is the case nationally, failing to look properly is the biggest cause of accidents (13 of 27 accidents in AE, or 48%). However, this could highlight a key moment for a public information campaign to address that misperception. Want safer roads? Pay more attention!

If it’s simply personal taste, I’m not sure the law is the place to look. As much as I agree that the body kits added to some of the genuine AE supercars are offenses to these feats of engineering. And there are far better ways to enjoy a beautiful machine than repeatedly driving past Costa Coffee in Alderley Edge, some people need to accept that the law allows people to drive expensive cars through AE as many times as an unimaginative driver would like.

Finally, some of the super cars driving through AE are simply normal journeys of residents driving to and from their homes in cars that happen to be expensive. So I repeat, it would be far more accurate if this issue was referred to as an issue of dangerous driving / obnoxious driving in AE. Not, a ‘supercar issue’.
Verity Williams
Monday 8th June 2020 at 8:59 am
It’s also worth linking the BBC article mentioned above, as it gives the photographers a voice, too:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-52923431
Paul Murray
Wednesday 10th June 2020 at 6:04 am
Verity: at last, some sensible comments.
David Pugh
Friday 19th June 2020 at 4:07 pm
Well said Verity.
Robin Pye
Thursday 25th June 2020 at 9:49 am
I've just come back from Piccolino's Corner on a Thursday morning.

There is one solitary photographer there and drivers are revving their engines for him.

One BMW driver accelerated up the bridge and briefly lost control of the vehicle swerving onto the opposite lane. Luckily there was nobody coming the other way at that point.

Playing around with powerful engines is more dangerous than people realise.

Two friends of mine were killed by a Ferrari that span out of control when the driver was just trying to see how fast it could go on a straight bit of an urban road with no other traffic on it. All they were doing was walking along the pavement hand in hand.

Maybe for this reason I have a real fear that we will see a similar tragedy in the village.

As Alan has reminded us, the cars that are being driven dangerously can be seen on YouTube. It must surely be a straightforward piece of police work to find the owners and prosecute them for dangerous driving.
Vince Chadwick
Thursday 25th June 2020 at 5:36 pm
As Robin Pye tragically illustrates in his post, the driven wheels of high powered cars will, when they break traction by sudden insensitive (unskilled?) application of power, lurch violently and uncontrollably sideways causing the car to swerve out of line, and indeed to spin completely round in some instances. This happens in an instant; snap-swerve. It sounds like both the cars in Robin Pye's example above did just this.

I remember one of the Airport tunnels being closed some years ago by someone in a high powered car 'flooring it' (presumably to appreciate the acoustics in the tunnel), and the car immediately involuntarily snapping round 90 degrees and hitting the tunnel wall with some force. Thankfully, the tunnels being one-way and no car in the other lane, only the perpetrator's car and his ego were damaged.

Losing control of a high powered car like this in Alderley village (or anywhere other than at a racetrack track day), with other cars as well as vulnerable cyclists and pedestrians in close proximity is potentially lethal.