I wish California would implement something like a revenue neutral cost shift on registration. Louder vehicle pay more (progressively with how loud they are, quieter ones pay less-- adjusted to be a net increase in cost over the median and a net decrease under it. (With louder defined using their noise at 0-25MH speeds)<p>I'd certainly feel better about the irritating motorcycles if they were subsidizing all the quiet EVs. The bikers say the ear splitting noise is useful to improve safety? Okay, they can pay for it.<p>Like other forms of pollution we don't need to immediately stop all of it to make an improvement.<p>Now lets talk about dark skies...
Sure, maybe after we handle air pollution, carbon in the atmosphere, and plastic, then we can talk about noise pollution.<p>It's so fun to point out new problems, but trying to prioritize everything is basically prioritizing nothing.
My neighbors put up a 20 foot plus wide American flag. It’s absurdly loud. When it storms and gets wet, it’s all I can hear inside my house.<p>While I don’t think it’s the next public health crisis, it’s certainly a crisis for me. And no, there’s nothing I can do about it. Good luck getting a city official to take up that battle. I’ve been told that maybe I’m just more sensitive to noise than others, and that their sensors can’t pick up noises over wind.
I hate noise pollution. I accidentally picked the worst apartment I can imagine, and I didn't realize it until I moved in: right next to the road that leads to the freeway on-ramp. After about 8pm, everyone wants to get on the highway as fast as possible, which results in tons of noise pollution.<p>I finally broke down and got the Sony WH1000MX3 headphones, which apparently have the "best" active noise cancellation. They do help, but they aren't perfect. They're also super expensive, which makes them impractical for a lot of people.<p>The entire problem could be solved with EVs or enforcing noise ordinances, but I feel like it just takes one person to ruin the whole thing.
If I could pass one dictatorial law --- hypothetically ignoring constituents and implementation details, but limited to pretty low-consequence stuff --- I would give serious consideration to pricing car honking at max($5, $5 x # of seconds honking). If you <i>really</i> need to honk, you'll happily pay $5 for the ability. If you don't, please spare us your tantrum.<p>I live on a semi-busy street in a big east coast city. It's almost amazing how many people honk and how often out of what looks mostly like frustration or spite. At least once a month someone honks for thirty straight seconds, always because they are mad about traffic that nobody can change.
God I love not living in a dense city. I haven't heard a car horn in days. The air outside smells better than the air inside. Visiting NYC my biggest impression was how much a nightmare it would've been for me to live there. It sounded like a vacuum running all the time. It was all dark because the buildings blocked sunlight. The air made my nose burn. Seeing a tree and a patch of grass on a streetcorner was like an oasis in the middle of a concrete desert.
Noise in general is a problem, but in particular it seems to me that emergency vehicle sirens have gotten much louder over the last few years. Also, the flashing lights on police cars seem like they're a lot brighter. Am I just imagining this?
AC installed between houses that are close to each other are another menace that makes it hard to sleep if your bedroom is on the wrong side of house. It’s not even the noise level, as it is the vibration and low frequency hum that often has an annoying phase that makes it difficult to ignore. White noise helps a bit, but that only works for people who are okay with blasting white noise in their bedrooms. Same goes for swimming pool pumps. Most places don’t have good laws regarding constant noise levels (as opposed to laws that govern things like loud music at night).
Noise pollution is a real problem that affects your health. And most of it could be solved by engineering if the required laws were more strict.
Seems like in the last decade, there's been a design trend in fast food restaurant for maximizing the ambient noise.
I love Chipotle's food, but I just can't eat inside, it's so ridiculously loud. I hope this trend dies soon.
"It’s aural litter — acoustical litter — and, if you could see what you hear, it would look like piles and piles of McDonald’s wrappers, just thrown out the window as we go driving down the road.”<p>That's how I feel about noise pollution <i>inside</i> the office.
Air pollution is still the next big public-health crisis. 4.2 million people die each year from air pollution <a href="https://www.who.int/airpollution/en/" rel="nofollow">https://www.who.int/airpollution/en/</a>.
I didn't realize it when signing but the apartment I'm staying in through Bungalow is under a flight path.<p>There is a curfew for flights at night but that only covers departures. Airplanes can still land at any hour.<p>It's a slow torture. I can't wait to leave San Diego.
Constant sirens from emergency vehicles seem to be about as useful as car alarms.<p>Except in urban environments the sirens are 24/7, reverberate for blocks, and are extremely hard to localize until the vehicle is right next to you and blaring at 120dB.<p>It's like someone constantly yelling "hey, there's an emergency somewhere!"
The technology is ready - EVs - but the ramp up is taking too long. States and cities need to ban the sale of new non-hybrid ICE vehicles starting now - there are already options at all price points.
First half of the article felt more likely to be a modern risk due to earbuds. Actual ambient noise pollution might be a problem, but I doubt it. I don’t see how such studies could adequately control for air pollution. On a related note, this quote from the article didn’t make any sense to me:<p>> ‘If you could eliminate all motor-vehicle noise or all motor-vehicle air pollution—but not both—which would you choose?’ As a rule, the majority chose noise.”