How a small group of activists got gas-powered leaf blowers banned in D.C.
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Re: How a small group of activists got gas-powered leaf blowers banned in D.C.
#2Instead of outright banning them, why not require a strict maximum dB level rating (in other words as tested by an independent lab).
Personally I’m in favor of limiting noise output rather than outright banning.
Otherwise it’s tyrannical for a minority to tell the majority what they may and may not do.
Re: How a small group of activists got gas-powered leaf blowers banned in D.C.
#3Instead of outright banning them, why not require a strict maximum dB level rating (in other words as tested by an independent lab). Personally I’m in favor of limiting noise output rather than outright banning. Otherwise it’s tyrannical for a minority to tell the majority what they may and may not do.
Then it’s much harder to enforce. It goes from ‘oi no leafblowers mate’ to getting an independent official with a calibrated tool and all sorts of faff.
Plus the article is more about pollution than noise so limiting noise doesn’t help with that does it.
Re: How a small group of activists got gas-powered leaf blowers banned in D.C.
#4Instead of outright banning them, why not require a strict maximum dB level rating (in other words as tested by an independent lab). Personally I’m in favor of limiting noise output rather than outright banning. Otherwise it’s tyrannical for a minority to tell the majority what they may and may not do.
>The acoustic study found that in a densely settled neighborhood, a gas-powered blower rated at, say, 75 decibels of noisiness can affect up to 15 times as many households as a battery-powered blower with the same 75-decibel rating.
Re: How a small group of activists got gas-powered leaf blowers banned in D.C.
#5Glorious day! I wish they would ban them where I live.
I detest noise, but judging by the popularity of Harley's I must be in the minority.
Re: How a small group of activists got gas-powered leaf blowers banned in D.C.
#6>Noise, they have come to understand, is the secondhand smoke of this era.
Most of the author's points about sound come down to hand waving and weasel wording. He says hearing loss is "coming up fast on the list" of public health problems (a meaningless assertion), and then he never presents evidence that leaf blowers are a significant cause of this. He started with the conclusion (leaf blowers make an annoying sound), and then did his best to argue the sound that annoys him should be illegal.
On the other hand, he's right that 2 stroke engines are dirty as hell, and his statistics to that ends are a bit more convincing.
Re: How a small group of activists got gas-powered leaf blowers banned in D.C.
#7They won't be happy until the US is transformed into a 3rd world country. No cars, no roads, no lawns or landscaping, no suburbs, no pesticides or fertilizers of any kind, no irrigation or management of runoff water. Just masses of people living in dense urban hellscapes, milling around on foot, starving to death from famines and droughts. But at least we can feel good about the lack of noise pollution and not impacting the craw dads in the local creek.
Re: How a small group of activists got gas-powered leaf blowers banned in D.C.
#8What is wrong with using a rake to pick up leaves? Leafblowers are loud, dirty, they raise huge clouds of dust, they stink of gasoline, and at the end of the day, blowing leaves into a pile isn't even faster than raking them together. Using a leafblower is a sign of entitled loutishness.
Re: How a small group of activists got gas-powered leaf blowers banned in D.C.
#9Glorious day! I wish they would ban them where I live. I detest noise, but judging by the popularity of Harley's I must be in the minority.
We are in the minority but there are places where motorcycles aren't welcome. The trailer park I live in during the week is one of them. It's a pleasure to arrive home M-F to a pastoral environment where the smell of lemon blossoms accompanies the birds chirping, but then there's this shock when I go home to the mortgaged place on a golf course with daily lawn mowers, blowers, and straight piped Harleys.
There could be a middle ground: Allow lawn care only one day a week. That's what the $FAR_TOO_EXPENSIVE place down the road does.
Re: How a small group of activists got gas-powered leaf blowers banned in D.C.
#10For what it's worth a gas powered leaf blower puts out as much pollution in a day of work as a Ford Raptor will in 100,000 miles.
Source: https://www.edmunds.com/car-reviews/features/emissions-test-...