Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Noise pollution hurts the heart

theatlantic.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 286 posts

Re: Noise pollution hurts the heart

#251

Post by airstrike »

learnstats2 wrote: post #216
airstrike wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have this wild pet idea that we should be have a meter connected to a car's horn and at the end of the year you have to pay a bill for the amount you used. Something like $0.10 / second. You'll still honk when you need to but think twice before using it to annoy other drivers.

> Something like $0.10 / second This is a low enough cost that I bet people would use and hold their horn for longer, to show their annoyance in $.

OK, $0.10 / second growing exponentially at 100% per second or use the Day-fine as someone else proposed

Re: Noise pollution hurts the heart

#252

Post by sep_field »

buzzerbetrayed wrote: post #250
sep_field wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

your comment reads as . Can you make a more constructive statement?

Honestly I feel like my comment was pretty clear. 1. You are not "likely" to be shot, as that implies it is the probable thing to happen. This is clearly false. Go knock on 100 car windows and you most likely won't get shot once, let along 50 times. 2. You are trolling HN. You're intentionally making outlandish political claims that have no basis in reality (such as the one above), in order to "stir the pot". edit: I…

I have a neighbor that has deliberately made their car exhaust very loud, and they frequently just go and sit in their car idling for long periods of time, upwards of an hour. A couple of weeks ago they were out there at 2 in the morning for over an hour, making it impossible to sleep. The sound is so loud it vibrates my floor.

I have been very tempted to go ask them to please be respectful, but because of the gun situation here, I truly am personally terrified of being shot if I do so. This is not trolling and is not outlandish, it is my honest, actual assessment based on a current situation I'm enduring.

You are being dismissive saying my comments are obviously trolling and not allowing for me to just have wildly different viewpoints compared to your own.

Re: Noise pollution hurts the heart

#254

Post by aleclarsoniv »

zemvpferreira wrote: post #204
bsd44 wrote: post #11

I used to live in a flat with a window onto the main road and I would violently wake up 4-6x every night and my heart rate would be through the roof. It's not easy to go back to sleep after that. I can get used to consistent noise and filter it out, but I can never get used to an extremely loud noise coming rapidly out of dead silence. Those were mostly custom exhausts, motorcycles and sirens. If I really needed slee…

I'm sorry you went through that awful situation but... was there anything stopping you from wearing earplugs? I religiously wear the best earplugs and face mask I can find to sleep. Even in controlled environments, they make a hell of a difference.

How would you hear your fire alarm?

Re: Noise pollution hurts the heart

#255

Post by vladvasiliu »

pims wrote: post #207
vladvasiliu wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, there actually are laws in France regarding noise. I don't remember what the numbers are, but technically most of the loud pipes on motorcycles are illegal. The registration has a line for the noise generated by the bike under certain conditions, and if you modify the bike (usually the muffler) such that the noise is above that level, your bike is illegal. The issue, of course, is that there's no enforcement. M…

Interesting, I had a look and it seems like it should be limited to 80dB for the biggest motorcycles. But that's when measuring in specific conditions in a lab, so there's a more "practical" (ahem) limit that depends on the model but is always at harmful levels (>80dB) and is measured when the engine is only at 50% of its maximum power. So we have a badly designed law which is, as you mentioned, not even enforced. So…

I've looked a bit into it, and it's actually not that bad. [0] is a French source (not government affiliated).

Basically, as you said, there's the "official" test, which is dynamic (the bike has to be moving) and involved enough to not be practical for everyday controls by police.

But there's also a "static" test, for the purpose of facilitating police controls. The meat of it, from the article, is below. The parameters for this test are given on the registration slip of the vehicle (expected sound level / RPM).

---

The sound should be measured with a microphone placed as follows:

* At an angle of 45º to the vehicle's longitudinal axis

* At 50 cm from the muffler

* At the height of the highest point of the muffler and at least at 20 cm from the ground

* If the bike has mufflers on both sides, testing should be done with two microphones, one on each side

Testing conditions:

* Testing must be done at 50% of the nominal power RPM [not max RPM]

* If max RPM is 5000 or less, testing must be done at 75 % of nominal power RPM

* There must be at least 3m of free space around all sides of the vehicle

---

This level is higher than the one in the official test, but it doesn't really mean anything. The official test is done wide open throttle starting at 50 km/h, so it should reflect fairly well the actual noise produced when riding around town. The static test isn't involved in the homologation of the vehicle, it's just there for the police to be able to check that the vehicle hasn't been tampered with.

[0] https://ffmc.asso.fr/bruit-des-motos-comment-le-mesure

Re: Noise pollution hurts the heart

#256

Post by jodrellblank »

avidiax wrote: post #235
pharmakom wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A simple solution would be to require car companies to make the horn as loud inside the vehicle as it is outside. However, general motor traffic noise - tyres, engines, displaced air - is loud enough to be a serious problem anyway. I don't know how we solve this. Car dependency is so ingrained in our collective consciousness; is it politically feasible to find a way out?

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-noise-camera-trial-to... Noise cameras. Just like a speed camera, but it measures noise levels and issues a ticket in the mail. There's unfortunately a regressive element (some people can't afford to fix their noisy exhaust), but I see no reason not to issue tickets for noise outside of normal hours, e.g. 7am-10pm.

I'd guess that most people working "outside of normal hours" are doing it by necessity doing some kind of low wage job, and therefore poorer. e.g. anyone who works in restaurants or bars or music or nightlife after 10pm, taxi drivers, pizza delivery, Uber drivers, 24/7 gas station and supermarket employees, security guards, delivery truck drivers, garbage collectors, train drivers, etc.

Re: Noise pollution hurts the heart

#257

Post by calvano915 »

avidiax wrote: post #233
0_____0 wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you say a little bit more about this? What's the difference in how the cities are structured that makes this so?

Very strong mass transit systems, so there are fewer cars on the road. The cars that are on the road tend to be quite new, which is a result of a stringent mandatory inspection after a car gets older that makes it more economical to export the car and buy a new one. So cars are typically in excellent repair, with a small economical engine. The driving culture is generally conservative. People don't race each other, c…

The cities are much more walkable as well. It was mind-blowing to use Google Maps for walking and transit door to door including specific numbered staircases for train stations with precise to the minute schedules for the trains.

Re: Noise pollution hurts the heart

#258

Post by pims »

defterGoose wrote: post #239
pims wrote: post #71

I've been suffering from tinnitus and hyperacusis for over three years. It led me to read a bit about hearing in general, and more and more studies show that most of the hearing loss we experience as we grow old is nothing natural but the result of the years of abuse we inflict upon our ears in our everyday lives ( https://www.jneurosci.org/content/40/33/6357 ). Even though my situation is specific, this article does…

Ive been wondering about my hearing issues lately, too. I have occasional "bursts" of tinnitus, i assume from my hypertension, but ive also been looking for answers regarding a weirder phenomenon ive started noticing in recent years. Hyperacusis seems to be the closest word for it, but for me it manifests as isolated spurious noises seeming louder than they are. It sounds like someone turned up the gain on my ears fo…

If by bursts of tinnitus you mean a high pitched noise for a few seconds (sometimes longer), these are rather normal and very common, not much to worry about I believe.

Is the sensitivity you describe specific to certain sounds? If so, that could be some kind of hyperacusis as it can be very focused on certain frequencies. Mine is mild/moderate so I can tolerate a loud discussion for a while, but stuff like broken glass is simply unbearable, it feels like the glass is breaking inside my ears and usually makes them painful for a couple of hours.

Re: Noise pollution hurts the heart

#259

Post by bsd44 »

zemvpferreira wrote: post #204
bsd44 wrote: post #11

I used to live in a flat with a window onto the main road and I would violently wake up 4-6x every night and my heart rate would be through the roof. It's not easy to go back to sleep after that. I can get used to consistent noise and filter it out, but I can never get used to an extremely loud noise coming rapidly out of dead silence. Those were mostly custom exhausts, motorcycles and sirens. If I really needed slee…

I'm sorry you went through that awful situation but... was there anything stopping you from wearing earplugs? I religiously wear the best earplugs and face mask I can find to sleep. Even in controlled environments, they make a hell of a difference.

I considered using earplugs, but I researched it online and I learned that using them regularly can cause health problems related to your ears. They are meant to be used on occasion not for a prolonged periods of time, so I abandoned the idea.

I also tried white noise generators, but those were only effective against neighbours and not outside traffic. In the end, knocking myself out with a bottle of wine was the only thing that worked. That's not something I would do regularly, but once every few months when the lack of sleep would start to affect me badly in every possible way.

After I moved to a quiet place, my life improved tenfold in a space of few weeks. The only thing that stayed with me is an elevated sensitivity to noise (a kind of trauma but instead of being afraid I get mad at the noise origin).

Re: Noise pollution hurts the heart

#260

Post by pims »

vladvasiliu wrote: post #255
pims wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting, I had a look and it seems like it should be limited to 80dB for the biggest motorcycles. But that's when measuring in specific conditions in a lab, so there's a more "practical" (ahem) limit that depends on the model but is always at harmful levels (>80dB) and is measured when the engine is only at 50% of its maximum power. So we have a badly designed law which is, as you mentioned, not even enforced. So…

I've looked a bit into it, and it's actually not that bad. [0] is a French source (not government affiliated). Basically, as you said, there's the "official" test, which is dynamic (the bike has to be moving) and involved enough to not be practical for everyday controls by police. But there's also a "static" test, for the purpose of facilitating police controls. The meat of it, from the article, is below. The paramet…

Thanks for clarifying. Given the considerable amount of motorcycles that are way too loud, it still feels like the noise limits for homologation are way too high. Or if that many bikes have been tampered with, it means there really is absolutely no enforcement whatsoever. Either way it sucks :/
Post reply on HN