New UK Fireworks Laws

[arm]

It seems that fireworks laws are getting stricter again in the UK.

From what I've heard three new rulings will be comming into effect soon. The first two make a little sense, the third is utter shit. The new restructions are as follows:

1. Fireworks are not to be sold to anyone under the age of 21. Ok fair enough but we all know how effective this will be....

2. Fireworks will only be able to be sold in the periods leading up to Nov 5th and New Years Eve. This would theoretically stop all out of season fireworks. But what about people buying during these times and letting them off later. Also, what happens if someone wants to celebrate an important event (ie 21st/40/50th birthday) with just a little display....

3. No firework should be louder than 120 dB. WHAT THE FUCK? This is just retarded. That sends all those lovely moroon rockets like superblitzknall down the pan doesnt it. Now every firework is going to sound like a wet fart when it goes off...

Most of this is due to the actions of those god damned antifireworks lobbyists. This guys must soil their pants everytime something goes off with a bang, not to mention being a bunch of boring old gits. Do they not realise not everybody gets off over stamp collecting or knitting?

The paranoia of this lot is mainly due to the actions of little punk-assed kids (i.e. putting fireworks through peoples letter boxes etc...)

End the end it all comes down to an age old axiom - someone misbehaves and everone else has to pay.

[chemistr1]

This has been waiting to happen in the UK for years and it all boils back to the earlier law that banned bangers so kids being kids started taking the then/now? legal airbombs apart and using these instead, they also realised that that the result was louder and that by mixing a few togeher you could form a small demolition charge, locally around here telephone boxes and cars became a target with some really frightening results. The law wont work though as most fireworks sold here this year were illegal imports sold cheaply and kids will never be happy with fireworks until they produce a decent bang so will just start disassembling legal fireworks again or rely on illegal imports. The goverment as usual created the problem in the first place and will now use it as an excuse to pass more draconian laws on the legally abiding majority. (US again) Britain now has more anti freedom laws than the former USSR but we are a free people lo.

[scarletmanuka]

I heard on the news last night that some lady was injured by a firework at a soccer match, do the new laws have anyhting to do with this?

[VX]

No, these laws have been in the pipeline for a while now.

The women who was injured at wolverhampton, was injured by a firework from a 'profesional' display, which, even if the law was in effect, would have been exempt anyway.

[arm]

Does Anyone know what happened to her in more detail?

[vulture]

Have you any idea how loud 120dB is? 80dB will cause hearing damage on permanent exposure, and 120dB is about 9 times as loud.
If you're within 5m of a 120dB sound source your eardrums will be turned into shreds.

[PanMaster]

are you on drugs?
150Db is the sound of a turbojet a few meters away, 120Db is a loud concert, 90Db is someone talking, 80Db is you stamping your feet or dropping a brick. Anything above 120Db isn't too good.

[Rhadon]

PanMaster, although you're right and although drugs aren't something bad in my opinion you will have to work on your behaviour in order to stay around here for long.

[arm]

Are you sure this is so? An average road drill produces sound at 110-120dB(SPL) at a distance of 1m and although prolonged exposure does cause hearing loss it does not 'shred' human eardrums. The threashold of pain is approximately 130-140 dB(SPL) where definite hearing loss will occur on a single exposure. Human eardrums pop at around 180 db(spl)

Also as you may know the decibel/Bels scale is a logarthmic one, where a difference of 10 db(SPL) represents a increase in intensity of x10. To human ears however the sound appears to be approximately 2 times loader for every 10 dB(SPL). Thus 120 dB(SPL) is perceived as being (approximately) 16 times louder than 80 db(SPL).

All of this doesnt take into account that the sensitivity of human ears varies with frequency also.

The new regulations do not specify the distance from source. But since a lot of loud report rockets will be banned I am assuming that their measurements are fairly close to the source. I can be fairly sure that a 2oz report rocket is most definately not 120 dB from a distance of ~300ft.

[Jacks Complete]

Hmm...

120dB is too loud for me to handle without earplugs, but that's cos I already have hearing loss. If you expect 120dB, you will jump a bit, but it isn't too bad.

I bought a small digital sound level meter from Maplin, for £45, and it tells you all sorts of fun things. For example, your mobile phone is capable of putting out nearly 120dB into your ear, from the earpeice. A blackpowder revolver is about 120 dB, measured from about 1 meter (though I think it is actually that the meter doesn't really pick up loud noises that fast, as it failed to pick up 7.62mm gunfire from even close ranges.) From a Health and Safety law point of view, you have to provide hearing protection above 85dB, and 140 dB is the "never exceed" limit. 140dB is as loud as you can handle without good hearing protection, and it is actually tricky to get higher than this, as 140dB is the sound pressure level equivalent of a hard vacuum!

Things like jet engines, shotguns and foghorns are all louder because they actually push mass around with a net flow. A speaker cannot do this, as if it tries to "pull" the air harder than 140dB, it just means the air cannot move that fast, and it won't get any louder. Strangely, you can get to something like 230dB in water, as it is less compressible, so letting you transfer more energy into it. Kind of like a heavier bullet at the same speed.

The best sounders on the market can do about 135dB, and they tend to be peizo sound bombs. Some people get really disorientated by them, and can't even see straight. The power needed to get high pressure levels at higher frequencies is lower, so most alarms tend to be up at high frequencies, rather than down low, where they feel like your guts are going to fall out.

Has anyone posted stuff on Infrasound weapons?

[arm]

Yeah, I think a shotgun is around the 140 dB(SPL) level. Everytime I fire one without ear muffs I go deaf for about 5 seconds (All I can here is a loud ringing).

The loudest thing I've heard was when 2-3g of fulminating powder exploded about 3-4m away from me (inside the kitchen!!!!). All I actually heard was KABOO.....then silence. Both my eardrums were perforated. It took around 24hrs for my hearing to return to a usable level and a week for them to get back to normal. The blast was so loud that it shook all the dust off the backs of the cupboards onto the worktop. I actually found the whole being stone-deaf experience kind of pieceful, like the world had gotten very quiet all of a sudden - very strange.

The only reason I was preparing that quantity of yellow powder was that I did not believe that such an innocuous set of chemicals could be that powerful. Just goes to show - dont be a prick like me, always start small!

[Anthony]

Logically, the level would be taken from the instructed operating distance of the firework. For ground effects, this would be the recommended retiring distance (e.g 5m, 25m etc).

For air effects, it could again be the retiring distance, which would actually be the diagonal distance from the "retired" observer to the firework in the air.

I believe the thing about mobile phones, I find a ringing phone held to your ear a little painful.

[arm]

Logically, the level would be taken from the instructed operating distance of the firework. For ground effects, this would be the recommended retiring distance (e.g 5m, 25m etc).

Thats what I would have thought, but since report rockets around the 2oz of flash mark are going to be banned it seems that they are measuring a lot closer. A 2oz rocket is fucking loud, but it sure isnt 120 dB. Either way, we're still getting fucked over.

[tmp]

To get an idea of fireworks laws in the U.S. read my 02/04/04 post under
the "here we go again" thread. I don't know about the laws in the U.K.
but it would be interesting to compare them to ours.

As for sound levels, I learned my lesson the hard way. On my 21st
birthday, I purchased my first handgun - a .44 MAGNUM. I fired it
without the benefit of hearing protection, being the ignorant dumbass I
was almost 25 years ago. The sound level by that instant blast can go
up to 146 dBa depending on the strength of the round used. This puts
it on par with some centerfire rifles. I have permanent hearing loss to
this day(about -40 dB in the mid-range). I soon learned to use earplugs
and earmuffs, but the damage was done. Some of the more powerful
centerfire rifles(7.62mm and higher) approach or in some cases exceed
160 dBa. With them I definitely put the earplugs in !

Before the 1966 ban, M-80's, cherry bombs, ashcans, and blockbusters
were commonly available in the U.S.. The noise they make is roughly
equal to a 12-gauge shotgun using 3 inch shells.