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Comment by jmugan | Hacker News Reader

I'm always surprised that we tolerate so much unnecessary noise. We let people fly helicopters around and run leaf blowers. We even allow trucks to go beep beep beep and alert everyone within a kilometer that they are backing up, even though we have rearview cameras, like it's everyone else's responsibility to scurry out of their way.

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As someone with tinnitus and hyperacusis I think about this often. A bus or truck dumping its air brakes right next to you, incredibly loud sirens, squeaky breaks that pierce the soul. I feel fairly certain you could make the case that many sounds we have grown to just accept in society are in fact at dangerous decibel levels.

There are ordinary household activities that reach dangerous decibel levels too. Stacking ceramic dishes, slamming the toilet seat, vacuuming in a tight space, etc.

You will actually find that doing every day chores is much more pleasurable with hearing protection.

We have no glass, ceramic, steel, or marble-topped tables or furniture for this reason. Putting things down on them is super noisy, people tend to drop things on accident and the sound of a metal water bottle hitting a thick glass table is the worst. Even simple things: keys, phone, coffee mugs, your laptop. I feel silly typing this out, but the general noise level of day-to-day living went way down when we swapped the glass furniture for wood furniture throughout the whole house.

+1 to earplugs when vacuuming the car.

I now often put the dishes away with my noise cancelling headphones on, after accidentally doing it one day with them on and finding out how much less jarring it is. I wonder what the affect of this on age related hearing loss is - i.e how much of age related hearing loss is actually cumulative minor environmental toll.

Only problem with applying this strategy outside of domestic environments is safety.

Agreed, dish stacking physically hurts! There is a fine balance though, as with hyperacusis wearing hearing protection can make the problem worse as your sensitivity to sound can increase. Also makes the tinnitus seem worse. I will admit to putting in my custom earplugs when I unload the dish washer, however.

I live about 2 miles from a regional airport. Normal flight patterns mean I rarely hear planes flying in or out. Occasionally, when the winds require a different pattern I’ll hear a 20 seater jet.

Air shows. Ugh. Nothing but the loudest, most obnoxious airplanes ever made circling over my house for 4 days straight. At least we’re done for 2023. Time to figure out when next year’s show is so I can be out of town.

The more money you have, the less you hear. Why is it homes are the cheapest next to airports? Because planes on their flight path will drive you crazy.

People don’t tolerate noise. It’s the poor people that do, the ones that can’t control their environment.

Not necessarily - there are a lot of factors into house prices, and in Sydney some of the most trendy and pricey areas are on the flight path. It is only once the plane noise becomes so loud you can't talk (500-1000ft?) do I think it hits on the home values. A 3000ft high commercial jet every 4 minutes doesn't touch the house prices.

Re trucks beeping - that’s partly legal responsibility isn’t it? I mean, we have had the ability for trucks to beep as they back up for far longer than we have had the ability for them to realistically have functioning rear view cameras. And since the normal expectation is that vehicles go forward, it makes sense to alert when doing something unexpected, like backing up. And so the laws we have mandate and expect beeping noises from large vehicles because the idea that laws would mandate rear cameras hasn’t caught on yet.

More modern trucks use white noise instead of a beep anyway, it's both much easier to tell direction from a broad spectrum sound, and significantly less annoying at the same time.

I've never heard of a truck using white noise instead of a beep, but that might just be working as intended. Here's a video of what it sounds like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rwJ5NCf1Vw

The Amazon vans where I am all are white noise rather than beeping. It's still not great but it's better than the beep.

Interesting.

I think I may have heard that noise, and just not known what it was. It could easily be mistaken for some sort of mechanical bit of the truck (slipping belt, various bits and bobs going around in the engine).

That's interesting. After watching the video I realized that yes the white noise style of backup sound is fairly common on trucks here in the US but never thought about why. Actually, now that I think about it the local garbage trucks use it. You definitely know where the sound is coming from, and it's loud and it gets your attention.

For the last several years I've been living in Mexico, after living in Seattle for many years, and I'm still struck by how much quieter it is here. Playing of loud music is actually far more common here, especially at night, and jake braking is a thing too but none of it's annoying. There's no noise ordinances that I know of. Even still the noise level is generally far lower than even a quiet day back in the States. Right now it's Sunday afternoon and man it feels like a quiet Sunday afternoon. No complaints.

I'm not sure about that. I used to live in an apartment building in front of a cement factory where trucks would back up all day long. They mostly had that white-noise thing instead of the beeping. Yet, I could still hear them from the 11th floor through double-paned windows, even though my building was in front of the trucks as they were backing up.

I haven't heard any trucks around here do that, so maybe they work really well.

It looks like it is required in the US only when the view is obstructed, which I interpret to mean only when there isn't a camera. I would guess people keep using them because there is no perceived downside, and if they hit anyone they can say, "Hey, we told them we were coming." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back-up_beeper

It's also simpler technologically to have it switched by the vehicle's gear control, same as the lights. Additionally if it was manually controlled by the driver, some of them wouldn't bother activating it some portion of the time, and then that would have to be policed. Personally I'd probably go for that but it does present its own problems.

It might make sense for older larger vehicles that primarily move forward to have backup beepers. But every commercial oriented vehicle seems to have them now, including the smallest of dock loaders. These smaller vehicles have clear visibility in all directions but still put the burden of avoiding danger on everyone else instead of the vehicle operator. This is unreasonable and disturbs and annoys people at a large radius away. There is no excuse in this day and age to not build and retrofit commercial vehicles with obstacle avoidance systems and proximity sensors to replace backup beepers.

Just wait until the Amazon drone delivery service starts to roll out. You'll have drones humming along all day long. It'll be advertised as a "benefit" in your new neighborhood—buy the house, your address is eligible for drone deliveries! Or you have to pay a little extra in your HOA for the "luxury" of having your Amazon orders delivered in 30 minutes.

Good use of AI: detect delivery drone, fire Nerf sentry guns to eliminate noise.

At least this type of noise is more of a side effect and not the purported goal of the device. Contrast that with subwoofers which over 12in should just be illegal in apartments...

Anything and everything is permissible in the name of safety.

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