If you want to be among the cool crowd in the New Zealand city of Porirua, it’s obvious what you need to do. It simply requires attaching huge speakers to your car’s roof and blasting out Celine Dion songs as loud as possible.
Porirua, a small city in the Wellington region in the country’s North Island, has seen drivers decking their vehicles with public emergency-grade warning systems and turning the volume up to 11. The so-called “siren battles” are seeing drivers looking to outdo each other in the loudometer.
But as the industrial speakers, loudhailers and sirens go into competition, there have understandably been some complaints.
One resident has started a petition on change.org to force the ban on blasting music.
“Although I enjoy listening to Céline Dion in the comfort of my lounge and at my volume,” Diana Paris wrote, “I do not enjoy listening to fragments of it stopping and starting anytime between 7pm and 2am.”
Porirua mayor Anita Baker said people are being kept awake by the racket which has given a strange fame to the city of 61,000.
Baker said: “We need to find somewhere alternative for these people to go or they need to stop.
“They play half a song and tweak it on their things and make a screeching noise so it is not like you’re even listening to good music. I don’t mean to be awful but it’s not even a complete song.”
Dion’s music might seem an unlikely choice but the Canadian singer has reportedly become a favourite in the Auckland region among those of Pasifika origin. Her songs are also said to be a good choice for a siren battle as they are clear, and have high treble without much bass.
RNZ said that local police have been looking into 40 reports of excessive noise in relation.
Porirua is located within a basin which is said to make the problem worse.
“It’s vibrating all over the city wherever they do it because we’re in a basin,” Ms Baker said. “It’s really frustrating.”
