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I’ve lived in a few apartments that were situated along busy roads. Something like this would be nice, but I’m hopeful that we’ll someday get to a point where (
by jrussino 6y ago
I’ve lived in a few apartments that were situated along busy roads. Something like this would be nice, but I’m hopeful that we’ll someday get to a point where (almost) all of the vehicles on our roads will be electric. Has anybody worked out how much of a noise reduction we can expect from that?
- lisper 6y agoDepends on the street. Once you get above a certain speed most of the noise is tire noise, not engine noise. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roadway_noise https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roadway_noise
- johndough 6y agoIn my experience (living a mile away from a motorway), most of the noise is caused by the wheel bearings of badly maintained lorries instead of tires. One can usually tell by the high pitched noise.
- catalogia 6y agoI'm surprised that noise propagates far enough for you to hear. In my experience, the noise that propagates furthest from roads is the low frequency tire rumble.
- groby_b 6y agoUnless you live in a city, in which case most of the noise is emergency vehicles ;) I'm extremely skeptical this is something that can be addressed by noise cancellation, either.
- bobthepanda 6y agoThere have been discussions about adding back artificial noise, since a noiseless car would be extremely difficult to detect for people who don't have sight. Also a fair amount of noise generated by cars is not the engine; for example, you have the sound of the tires rolling on the pavement.
- asutekku 6y agoMost of the time on certain environments you don’t hear the cars motors at all, all you hear are the tires having a contact with the ground.
- crazygringo 6y agoEdit: removing my comment because I was wrong. Turns out tire noise can be louder. Thanks to commenters below for correction!
- wffurr 6y agoCombustion engine is only louder below about 35 mph. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roadway_noise https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roadway_noise "...rolling tires driving on pavement is found to be the biggest contributor of highway noise which increases with higher vehicle speeds."
- dashundchen 6y agoIn the US there are plenty of poorly maintained vehicles on the road emitting a lot of other nosies - squeaky belts, damaged or missing mufflers, rattling panels, worn brake rotors or pads. Most states have very lax inspection requirements. Even in my state, which supposedly is one of the strictest on inspections, it's surprisingly easy to have a dangerous failing car pass. Living near a busy intersection you hear all sorts of weird mechanical failures as cars brake and accelerate from the stoplight.
- wffurr 6y ago
- zbrozek 6y agoNoise is a complicated thing. If you're in a neighborhood that's got low-speed traffic and the occasional car engine is what's disrupting your peace, more penetration of EVs will be great. But EVs are also heavy, and cars are getting heavier in general. That isn't going to do you any favors on tire noise. I wouldn't expect the noise coming off of a freeway to change much.
- heipei 6y agoHere in Germany they have deployed so-called "whisper/porous asphalt" on the highways leading into some major city centres. Since it's more porous than regular asphalt it absorbs noise (and rain) much better, but the drawback is that it's more expensive to manufacture and is less durable. Just saying that there are probably lots of different noise reduction techniques that all add up their percentages, but these will only be put in place if noise pollution is taken as serious as it needs to be.
- coredog64 6y agoMy (US) state DOT paved over the concrete highways with rubberized asphalt for similar reasons. The asphalt doesn’t last as long, but it’s quieter and cheaper than concrete repairs. It’s also something that uses up old tires.
- catalogia 6y agoI live next to a busy street with electric trolleybuses (essentially rubber wheeled city buses that use electrical power from overhead lines.) They're very quiet compared to the odd diesel-powered truck, but the tires on pavement still produce a noticeable amount of noise.
- controversy 6y agoEVs will require a mind change. I have a hybrid. I drive it in St Augustine FL, America’s oldest city. As such the roads in the historic district are narrow. When I come to an intersection I have to be especially conscientious because pedestrians are use to engine noise bouncing down the road ahead of the car. People have walked out in front of me unaware of my existence. I normally mouth, “Surprise, motha fucka” or “I’m Batman” when that happens.
- cerberusss 6y agoYeah people will need to get aware of that. I'm European and drive a Renault Zoe. It plays some sort of "whoooooo" noise from under the bonnet/hood when you drive slower than 30 km (19 mi). On one hand, I think it's dumb because why am I explicitly making noise? So I turned it off. But then I scared the living hell out of two shopping ladies when I unintentionally crept up behind them, and now I always leave it on.
- imhoguy 6y agoNot much benefit from any kind of engine and noise when people walk or cycle with earphones. That is very usual view for me nowadays. Worse if they also stare at they phones too - blind and deaf at will.
- ghaff 6y agoI've said this before in comments but I just really have trouble understanding people who can walk--especially in cities--with earphones. I know some are less isolating than others--some like the pass through mode on the Airpod Pros. But I don't even really like earphones on a forest path much less a city street. I guess it's somewhat a matter of what you're used to. I grew up pre-Walkman and have just never gotten into the habit of wearing earphones like that.
- johnny_reilly 6y agoAre you Batman?
- DenisM 6y agoUp from certain speed more noise is coming from wheels, not engine. Especially if there are defects in the pavement.
- closeparen 6y agoReducing the noise floor is likely to make it more disruptive to have the window open, because the intermittent outliers (trains, buses, motorcycles, trucks) will be even more prominent.
- staticassertion 6y agoI live outside Muni/Caltrain. They're not great, noise-wise, but the motorcycles are 10000x worse. I get a number going by a day, and I just can't understand why they're allowed to be so absurdly loud. Buses/trains are relatively quiet, outside of a few edge cases like tracks scraping or honking when someone's in their way - rare occurrences.
- aspenmayer 6y agoMy intuition about this is that the deflection, intensity, and directionality of the noise from motorcycles impacts street level noise more than trains in a rail corridor. I believe that is why good street planning incorporates natural features that absorb and deflect noise, like greenery on street corners, for example.
- yibg 6y agoThe Caltrain (and other trains but Caltrain is more frequent) going by San Mateo is brutal. Their horn is almost constantly on due to the many ground level intersections and they are ear drum busting loud (by regulation no less).
- staticassertion 6y agoYeah, I do imagine it depends a lot on where you are. Even a few blocks from here the Caltrain can get much louder.
- Symbiote 6y agoThat seems excessive (from a YouTube video). In Britain, within towns there's usually gates on either side of the road, so it's not necessary for the train to use its horn. https://youtu.be/uaWG04vKYLg https://youtu.be/uaWG04vKYLg
- stared 6y agoPersonally, I would favor "noise tax" for any noise generated, regardless of the reason. (I may be biased, I am noise-sensitive.) In this case, it will put pressure to avoid, or reduce, noise when possible (as it directly lowers costs). It's not only cars - all neighbors with a passion for loud music (or quarrels), repair works taking longer and louder than necessary.
- alextheparrot 6y agoIf someone had to pay $1 to use their car horn I think we’d have much better drivers as well
- jacquesm 6y agoMost Romanian drivers would be bankrupt within a day or so.
- etrautmann 6y agoI absolutely detest Harley's and other loud motorcycles and don't understand why there are no restrictions on vehicular noise. Why do certain individuals get to impose their absurdly loud vrooms on everyone else just because they want to? It's such a trivially stupid negative externality that has no reason to exist.
- alonmower 6y agoThere are. They can and should be ticketed if they remove their mufflers or put in exhausts above the legal limit but lots of them DGAF
- angry_octet 6y agoThis is the whole point of riding around on a vibrating sex toy -- to be obnoxious to everyone else, to shout 'look at me'.
- sp332 6y agoHarley Davidson was held sued by the EPA for selling aftermarket "offroad-only" parts for customers' daily drivers. https://article.images.consumerreports.org/prod/content/dam/consumerist/2016/08/env_enforcement-2608482-v1-harley_davidson_complaint.pdf https://article.images.consumerreports.org/prod/content/dam/...
- kortilla 6y agoI used to live along Lawrence expressway in the Bay Area. At 45-50 mph, the noise that drown everything out was the tire noise. The Teslas were just as bad as any other modern ICE car. Where the engine noise was noticeable was low speed intersections when cars would accelerate and the tire noise would be negligible.
- ericmcer 6y agoIt would actually be fine with current gasoline cars minus motorcycles and small handful of people who purposefully make their vehicles loud for... who knows what purpose.
- noir_lord 6y agoMotorcycles as stock under EURO5 typically aren't that loud, it's the obnoxious after-market exhausts that make them so loud particularly with the baffles removed. I find it obnoxious and I am a motorcyclist.
- flanbiscuit 6y ago> but I’m hopeful that we’ll someday get to a point where (almost) all of the vehicles on our roads will be electric. While we wait for that why can't architects/planners take soundproofing more seriously (if they've considered it at all) and actually make the walls and windows inside a building soundproof. It's not even outside noise, I lived in apartments where I could hear my adjacent neighbors.
- sjg007 6y agoThe EPA has noise abatement regulations. Your city and state may also be involved. A lot of things are exempted usually though, such as trains, planes and automobiles.
- mikestew 6y agoAfter about 20mph, tire noise will overwhelm the noise made by even a (modern) ICE. Don’t get your hopes up. Granted, electric takes away the thing you attach a jackassly loud exhaust to, but tires are noisy.
- cadence- 6y agoWhen it comes to passenger cars, most noise is generated by tires hitting the road. Especially at higher speeds the engine noise doesn’t really contribute anything meaningful to the noise you hear. So electric cars won’t solve this problem.