But the most significant change in modern science is not just about the amount of noise, but how we experience it. Noise is no longer understood solely as a problem that affects hearing, it is also recognised as a systemic environmental pollutant. Transport noise is now one of the leading environmental cause of illness in Europe, second only to air pollution.
I moved to a rural area in early 2025.
Its so quiet. Sometimes Douche Baggins is running his or her turbobdiesel F4000 dually down the road too fast, but usually its just wind, roosters, frogs, and bugs.
Before this I lived in a suburb. Roaring cars constantly. There was a period of two months where semi trucks were driving down the street in front of the house one right after the other, constantly, day and night. A stroad down the street was noisy all the time.
Sounds like more of a Sackville-Baggins activity.
Cities Aren’t Loud: Cars Are Loud
Urban noise is a common problem, and the vast majority of it is created by motor vehicles. Noise is far too often dismissed as a minor nuisance, rather than the legitimate health issue that it is.
The book “Curbing Traffic” has a chapter about the health impacts of noise pollution. I explore the research in the book, and visit Delft, the city that is highlighted in the book as being a shining example of what can happen when noise pollution is taken seriously.
This video explores the problem that farting cars, farting motorcycles, and farting mopeds create in our cities.
I’m very curious to see this study replicated in Latin America.
My experience here is dreadful. I have stress, insomnia, and irritability from the constant noise from traffic (there’s a near constant blast of cars with megaphones repeating an amplified voice of some merchant selling something like gas or brooms or juice or buying scrap metal or whatever).
On the other hand, most of the locals literally don’t notice the noise. They can sleep through it all, even fire alarms.
The evolutionary argument is interesting, but I really want to see this study repeated and confirmed in cultures that are largely ambivalent about noise pollution
I hear you, absolutely dreadful. I also wonder how can people ignore those “sounds” so effortlessly.
It’s just what you’re used to, in a way.
I grew up in a noisy third world country and could’ve slept through a drummer 10 ft away. I then moved to a first world country and have now gotten used to the relative silence that I experience here, despite living in a downtown area of a major city. Going back home to visit my parents is a nightmare because I the up waking up a million times every night because of all the sounds around.
Visiting cousins/friends who live in the suburbs of my new country gives me the creeps because of how much more quieter it is. So I end up getting nightmares of being in some post apocalyptic world when I stay over at their places. So, I can’t sleep through complete silence either. 🤷♂️
I’m not convinced. It must depend on the person. I’ve lived in such a country for way over a year and I could never get used to it.
When you’re a a baby that falls asleep on a rickety ass bus bouncing around and blasting Latin music with loud brass instruments, it’s the comfort that rocks you to sleep.
If you experience that all through adolescence, it’s normalized. When you’re adult that’s lived through it your whole life, it’s normal.
That’s completely different than someone getting used to it
But I still think it’s unhealthy for everyone, as the article points out
Dude, drinking water isn’t even a right according to our supreme court.
I have mild tinnitus so i forgot what quiet is
Motorbikes are without a doubt my biggest source of audio-related stress. Cars are noisy too, but only a sliver in comparison.
Then there’s the special breed of bikers who go out of their way to announce themselves as infuriatingly as possible. I wish them a hot and itchy sleep tonight.
As a former rider, apologies. Whenever I drove in the city I kept the noise and rpm low so you could not make me out between the cars.
It is easily doable, but there are many assholes.
A million years ago southpark had an episode about that…
In the before times. In the long long ago.
Motorbikes are without a doubt my biggest source of audio-related stress.
The worst are those without any mufflers. And they block off streets.
Motorcycles are a close 2nd only to my neighbors who leave their dogs out barking all night
Well you could always have my neighbours who leave their dogs barking for days while they’re away AND rev the shit out of their Motorcross bikes right by our house.
The thing that’s causing health problems is the constant background noise which emanates from all road vehicles. Bikes may be annoying in the short term, but the vast majority of noise comes from cars.
The theory is that it keeps them safe because drivers hear them before seeing them.
That’s not how sound works. Sound works by inverse square, light doesn’t. Visibility is way more important. If they wanted to be more noticed they would wear high his clothing.
Hi vis clothing only matters when they actually see you, which they dont, because they’re looking at their phones. Noise otoh, may make them actually fucking look.
Sincerely, a motorcyclist.
Maybe we should reduce the number of cars.
I dunno, I love riding motorcycles, but I’ve never been able to hear a motorcycle on the road while I’m in a car. Unless they’ve just passed me, then I hear them. But by that time, noticing them is not really important, because they’re already past me. The noise from a motorcycle is from it’s exhaust, the exit of the vehicle. So it makes sense that it’s noisier behind them. If you wanted to be heard before you’re seen, then you’d have an air horn mounted to the front constantly blowing. And that would get you killed by any number of the previously sane people that you run into.
Makes more sense than their argument
Then there’s the special breed of bikers who go out of their way to announce themselves as infuriatingly as possible. I wish them a hot and itchy sleep tonight.
Some are absolutely obnoxious about this, but there is also a safety issue. A lot of car drivers don’t watch carefully enough for motorcycles (or bicycles). Being quiet is dangerous, it makes it more likely that drivers won’t notice you, and then you get hit because they didn’t see you either, and you’re not in an armored box, so you die. Being loud on the road keeps you alive.
If the only way I could safely drive my vehicle was to be a loud obnoxious fuck constantly to everyone in a quarter mile radius in heavily populated areas, I would simply take a different mode of transportation. RIP to everyone else but I’m different
Oh I agree, motorcycle riding is a very risky thing to do. There’s effectively no protection. It’s not a good idea, even without the context of other drivers. Worse, if you have an accident then the motorcycle becomes a 500-lb hazard .
I think it’s completely understandable that a rider wants to be loud though, especially in the present with so many drivers looking at their phones instead of watching the road.
They don’t listen to music?
Been riding for nearly two decades at this point but this is a myth. People fail to hear emergency vehicles. Your loud pipes aren’t saving you.
No they aren’t, but it makes them feel less shitty about the behavior.
This is some highly enriched, weapons grade bullshit. You want drivers to see you? Don’t drive like an idiot. The best way to be hit by a car when you’re on a motorbike is to drive way faster than everyone else, change lanes constantly, overtake cars on the right and split lanes. Guess who does that the most? Idiots on loud bikes.
On top of that you will not hear a bike driving behind you, no matter how loud it is. I have no idea in what fantasy scenarios laud bikes save anyone. It’s 100% just a stupid excuse used by obnoxious idiots.
Motorcycles are fun as hell, but safety has nothing to do with loudness and everything to do with hyper situational awareness and anticipating problems. The fatality curve peaks squarely in the Dunning-Kruger zone. New riders make mistakes but usually resulting in no or lesser injuries because they’re scared and careful. It’s when people get (over) confident at a year or so that the real problems come, usually resulting in a really bad scare or death or major injury. Those that (can and do) continue become super aware of their surroundings and are mostly the safest drivers out there, and the death and accident rate goes way down.
Truthfully driving societies would be way better off if people had to start on motorbikes (or ebikes) before starting to drive around 2 tons of death, the awareness stays with you. That said, fuck cars.
None of any of that has anything to do with noise, cars are sound isolated against their own noise FFS. In aggregate cars make much more noise than motorbikes anyway, sheer numbers, it’s just that you notice the dickhead with the loud pipes more (when you’re not in a sound isolating car).
Those that (can and do) continue become super aware of their surroundings and are mostly the safest drivers out there, and the death and accident rate goes way down.
That’s a hella cope, just admit you like the danger and embrace it.
If you ride, found the Dunning-Kruger person, if not, why comment?
FWIW, I’m retired from that now, but survived a decade or so with barely a scratch and a couple of exhaust burns. Just regular bikes now, and car (for now), mores the pity, but it wasn’t the danger, it was the feeling of speed and responsiveness. They suck in traffic, but a windy mountain road? Exhilarating.
why comment?
Because the concept that there’s a sweet spot where motorcycles are danger free is asinine, even if you, the driver make 0 mistakes (as if) you’re much more vulnerable on a motorcycle to other people’s mistakes.
you can absolutely hear a loud bike approaching your blind spot, which is kind of the important time to be noticing them
even I can hear them with my half deafness and shitty loud car that you have to yell in to have a conversation on the highway
This logic falls apart because the only time I ever hear motorcycles is when I’m not driving.
Whenever I’m driving, I’m generating my own road noise and listening to music. Just like most other drivers. People around here barely react to emergency sirens, they’re not hearing the busted pipes on an abused Harley. Motorcycle guys just like making loud noises, if they cared about safety? They wouldn’t ride a motorcycle.
I think motorcycles are cool as hell. But since the introduction of modern workplace safety laws, motorcycle crashes are the leading cause of amputations in the USA, so I’ll never ride one. I don’t think they should be banned, but it blows my mind that people choose to ride them given how dangerous they are.
Ok so let’s fix both
Public transit? Do I hear public transit?
Came here to say this. Fuck cars.
irrelevant in residential areas
I despise leaf blowers with all of my being, dear Lord how I loathe them.
Is raking that hard? So hard that every house within a mile should listen to your leaf blower, instead? WHEEEEERRRRR WHEEEEEERR I’M BLOWIN’ MY LEAFS WHEEEEEEEEEEEERRRR
… the worst part is, it’s 100% unnecessary, there’s no need to blow leaves. They’re supposed to be there, they don’t hurt a thing. Morons
I’ve been prepping my driveway for the last week to seal coat it, and I feel bad when I need to run the electric blower for like ten minutes max.
I keep the garage door shut when I run the air compressor and run the hose out under it, which works very well to suppress the noise.
I also share the opinion that regular leaf cleanup is stupid. like just leave 'em be, the bugs will use them and they’ll feed the lawn. raking is usually easier than blowing anyways, in my experience. maybe that’s just because I’ve never cut my grass weekly and don’t have a golf course for a yard
I hate grass and I hate all the stupid shit it takes to maintain it. Mowers, blowers, weed whackers. All that fucking stupid waste to cut grass and put it in a landfill.
Grass consumes so many resources only to end up in the dump. Most of my neighbors bag it up and put it in the trash. Water, useless fertilizer, pesticides, weed killer and other stuff, it is nontrivial.
Omfg, at least compost it! Fucking morons and their grass. I cut mine like every three weeks and clean up none of it. It can just lay there. If I didn’t live in a bullshit hoa neighborhood, I would just let it turn into a meadow. Ive seeded microclover, but it’s slow to take over. Working on it a little more each year.
Most of my neighbors bag it up and put it in the trash.
We throw ours in a ditch which I think is technically illegal for some stupid reason but I’ll be damned if I’m using a plastic bag for organic waste that I could just kinda… leave there.
Composting isn’t bad, but most ditches exist to manage water. I’ve dealt with the fallout of shifting water tables and clogged culverts. Maybe find a better place to dump the clippings. Or just start a compost pile. They’re not tough, just water and stir it every so often.
Just going to add: add browns, such as paper, torn carboard, wood chips… otherwise your pile of grass risks becoming a stinky anaerobic monstruosity.
Gas leaf blowers genate a fuckton of pollution. The stats are horrific for their outsoded carbon footprint. Like on the order of 30 minutes of a leaf blower is about the same as a truck driving from texas to Alaska. They should be banned for both noise and airborne gas pollutions.
I have a hard time believing this, purely based on how small a leaf blower tank is vs a truck tank, and that the truck will take several days of run time and several tanks of gas compared to what, a large shot glass for running the blower?
Now maybe we can find some pollutant like CO that gets filtered / catalytic-converted in modern trucks but not in blowers, but I’d argue those are way less of an issue than the pure numbers.
They’re still fucking annoying.
Is this a US thing? In Denmark I’ve never come across leaf blowers. Plenty of noisy cars though!
Depending on the quantity of leaves, it could kill your grass / ground covering, so they will likely need to be dealt with somehow.
In nature that’s fine, but for your yard, not as much.
In nature that’s fine, but for your yard, not as much
… Your yard is nature. Plant some native plants for fucks sake
They don’t bother me, even the loud gas-powered ones.
My HOA includes landscaping and they come around once on month on Monday and that saves me from raking. It only takes a few minutes and they move on to the next house.
Purposely loud motorcycles and cars, on the other hand…
I don’t hate my neighbours enough to buy a leaf blower.
endless barking dogs is my main noise gripe, fark…
Crying children in public spaces where you cant just get away from them, mine
I have someone else’s baby living in my house and it’s ruined my life and marriage. Fuck kids.
As I read this, I hear the truck selling gas blasting it’s “gas for sale” tune. And the neighbor’s blasting bad music. And dogs barking.
It’s 07:00 AM.
Fuck internal combustion engines with no exhaust, or amplified exhaust, or “loud” exhaust.
And double fuck the sorry assholes who ride/own them.
ironically, cars are the only thing that allow you to live a quiet life out in the country
Until they build a datacenter nextdoor, that is
Luckily you can still buy tannerite at Tractor Supply for that eventuality.
Nah, just live in a reasonable country with public transportation that runs through the country.
Hell, even the US has trains that mostly go wayyy out in the middle of nowhere
nah, that’s just because people want the convenience
you can absolutely do this without owning a personal motor vehicle, and getting around by public transport or bicycle or other means and having building materials and whatnot delivered by truck
I’ve had seedlings of this idea earlier this year so I’m happy to see this. It’s my fault for letting it rile me up so much, but neighborhood security cameras that make fuckass noises or yell “HI UR ON CAMERA” anger me to a likely unhealthy degree. They take a peaceful enough morning dog walk through a relatively low traffic noise neighborhood and shatter my peace of mind absorbing what little nature sounds I can. I’ve already made peace with myself that everyone now is too big a paranoid piss baby that they have to have their doorbell cams and other cams hoovering up my image into the panopticon against my will and consent. But then to have them fucking talk at me is beyond the pale.
neighborhood security cameras that make fuckass noises or yell “HI UR ON CAMERA”
Those exist??
They’re popular in my country. The camera swivels to follow you as you pass, and when someone walks by it screams over and over
YOU ARE UNDER SURVEILLANCE
…which is doubly insane because only like 10% of the population understand English in this country
One of my old neighbors had one. I would walk by it every day walking to the bus stop, I started flipping it off. So fucking annoying.
I’d bring an air horn with me
I’m so tired of assholes just ruining things for others, if it’s going to happen to me then we’re all going down, fuckers. I’m not going to just tolerate the bullshit and abuse anymore
like LED headlights. if I can’t see, my LED high beams are turning on so that you can’t see either. I didn’t start this, you did. sorry to the people behind the offending driver that I am possibly affecting but can’t even see. that asshole driver will just keep doing the same thing if they don’t feel any consequences.
Leaf blowers are even worse. I thought about it recently, and literally every time I’ve lost my temper in the last 25 years, it’s been because someone was making noise.
The US just said that clean drinking water isn’t a right, so good luck with getting peace and quiet recognised as a right…
I’ve said this ever since I found out rabbits die of stress.
You’re only allowed to use a jackhammer a certain amount of time from what it does to your body.
This environment is too loud and too much for us.
