16 ms·

France has passed a law protecting the sounds and smells of the countryside

105 points by yamrzou 6y ago

bobthepanda 6y ago
People have odd expectations that their new neighborhoods should fit them and not the other way around. I’m reminded of a situation in New York City where a couple moved into a fancy new apartment building next to an active train yard and then proceeded to sue for noise because the train yard was 24/7. Do due diligence before picking a place to live, folks.
- kayodelycaon 6y ago
  > then proceeded to sue for noise Oh that’s going to go over well. Some people in my neighborhood tried suing and now we have every train blowing their horns through this entire section of the city. A dozen times a day and many of those at night. It’s hard for me to not laugh at my neighbors every time it happens.
  - lisper 6y ago
    Unfortunately, the same thing also happens around small airports, and there the NIMBYs-come-lately often prevail. https://www.bjtonline.com/business-jet-news/runway-removal-to-commence-in-santa-monica https://www.bjtonline.com/business-jet-news/runway-removal-t...
    - Symbiote 6y ago
      The opposite also happens: the approach to London Heathrow gives wonderful views over London, but at least a million people suffer from more-or-less constant aircraft noise and pollution, except for a few hours overnight. Further expansion was approved in 2018, when one of the local MPs — Boris Johnson, who had promised to "lie down in front of bulldozers" to prevent expansion — was conveniently on a trip abroad during the vote it Parliament. (The areas of London overflown are a mix of wealthy, average and poor-ish, left-voting and right-voting, it's far too large an area to wave away as X group of people complaining.)
      - JJMcJ 6y ago
        In Bay Area, every time approaches to our three busy airports are changed there is a lot of bellyaching, mostly from rich areas like Saratoga and Woodside. Usually summarized by "Why don't you fly over those places were poor people live?" Made worse because well off areas tend to be in the hills, and so planes are lower over the ground.
        dmckeon 6y ago
        Much of the recent complaining is due to concentration of near-ground routes as a side-effect of the NextGen routing system. http://soseastbay.org/jet-noise-in-a-nutshell-nexgen/ http://soseastbay.org/jet-noise-in-a-nutshell-nexgen/ https://www.faa.gov/nextgen/faqs/ https://www.faa.gov/nextgen/faqs/
        therockspush 6y ago
        The sad part is NextGen was supposed to allow planes to approach at higher altitudes and descend with engines idled to reduce noise.
      - Veen 6y ago
        The Government won that vote with a majority of nearly 300. Johnson’s absence didn’t make the slightest difference to the outcome.
  - kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
    I have a commuter line next to me with a station 1000 ft. away. The early morning trains mute their horns and it's not very noticeable. With freight, I wouldn't expect them to bother but the FRA does allow for quiet trains.
    - kayodelycaon 6y ago
      I'm 240 ft from a freight line. :)
- recursive 6y ago
  Reminds me of the slow downfall of the Laguna Seca race track. https://jalopnik.com/the-absurd-community-fight-that-could-cripple-one-of-am-1736668909 https://jalopnik.com/the-absurd-community-fight-that-could-c... Short version: People move in next to an established race track and learn they don't like the sound of race tracks. You'll be shocked at what happens next!
  - randompwd 6y ago
    Are you being purposefully misleading? People moved in and then the race track tried to get noise restrictions from the 1950s changed to benefit them.(increasing no-muffler days(wtf?) and opening race course on sunday) From your linked propaganda piece: > restrictions on use set in the 1950s. I'd be heavily on side of people wanting a peaceful place to live than to cater to ignorant arseholes who don't want to use mufflers cos they like the sound it makes.
    - s1artibartfast 6y ago
      Unfortunately, this often a necessity strategy in the US legal system, where you have to exercise your rights to maintain them. This could’ve been advised directly from their legal team. If you build a raceway with the expectation of being able to scale usage based on demand and need,End it appears that this is coming into jeopardy, they need to scale up sooner to establish president as more people move in. There is a similar problem with farm water usage where farmers are incentivized to waste water due to a use it or lose it legal situation
    - JJMcJ 6y ago
      Big difference between race tracks, which are entertainment, and farming, which is where our food comes from.
    - recursive 6y ago
      If your definition of a peaceful place to live includes not hearing a race track, I can think of a few better strategies than moving in next to a race track.
  - 6y ago
- vmception 6y ago
  Hudson Yards? Because I was always wondering how that would go
  - bobthepanda 6y ago
    Sunnyside. Hudson Yards completely caps the yard over with buildings so I don’t think you can hear it at all.
    - vmception 6y ago
      Another exhibit in the irresistible allure of Manhattan
- gambiting 6y ago
  Tbf, what also sometimes happens is that you move somewhere, discover that a local business is breaking noise pollution regulations, but when you complain you are met with aggression because "it has always been like this, you should have done your research". And maybe that's true, but we have laws about some of this stuff for a reason - if they are being broken then I don't see problem with complaining.
  - bobthepanda 6y ago
    That would imply the regulations are right, correct, and made with diverse public input to represent all views.
    - gambiting 6y ago
      But I mean, what kind of the start to discussion is this. Should I not report a burglary either, since maybe the laws dealing with burglars fail to take into account someone's difficult life situation and don't reflect the diverse views of our citizens on the subject of non violent crime and punishments associated with it? Like, if I move somewhere where I know that the noise regulations mandate low noise after 10pm and there's a pub making a racket at midnight, of course I'm going to report it, the fact that it's been there for 200 years is literally completely irrelevant.
      - bobthepanda 6y ago
        Or, at least in the parent article, the regulations were found to be nonsense, and so a law was passed to revise them. Lots of well meaning laws have unintended consequences. A large contributing factor to out-of-control Californian wildfires was that prescribed fires to thin the amount of combustible material were often stopped by the air quality board.
- Blikkentrekker 6y ago
  It is more so that if a country have maximum sound regulations, then either the law should define exceptions for certain animals, and if it do not, it should be treated the same. I would assume there are certain maximum sound volume regulations in France as they exist in many places. “tradition” is all too commonly used as an argument to break the law. I do not believe it should play a factor at all whether something happened in the past, merely whether it violate the law. If France have nationwide rules about sound levels and the rooster exceeded them, then that is all the diligence a man needs to have done. One may certainly expect that the government upholds the law uniformly throughout one's country.
  - bobthepanda 6y ago
    That would imply a law is always absolutely correct. A legal system is ultimately made by humans who are fallible. And laws, particularly in the US, are usually created by one wealth/social class of people, and historically not made without diverse public input. I don't really care for holding such strict interpretations of law in high regard. It's not as if France doesn't have issues with perceived political elitism, given the existence of the yellow vests.
    - Blikkentrekker 6y ago
      Certainly the power to decide whether laws are “correct” in a specific, rather than general sense is far too much power for any one party to have? If laws could be so easily ignored, we might as well do away with them.
- polishdude20 6y ago
  There's another aide of this coin which is also important. There's that whole urbanism movement which is all about making our town and cities more suited to humans. Making the streets more walkable, reducing traffic, increasing bike infrastructure, increasing green spaces. These are all things that people have the right to request in a big city because it makes living there better for everyone.
  - bobthepanda 6y ago
    And where does the freight in a big city come from? It doesn't just teleport in. Freight trains are probably the least bad way for freight to enter a city, given their efficiency and relative greenness. But they do need to be unloaded, maintained, and turned around somewhere, and wherever that is going to happen is going to be noisy.
    - dbspin 6y ago
      This is an argument against zoning residential properties near freight yards, airports etc. Not a criticism of making cities more livable. No one should have to tolerate that level of noise pollution. It's actively hazardous to mental health.
      - bobthepanda 6y ago
        One could also do due diligence when looking for residential property to live in. The neighborhood in question has 1 bedrooms starting at $2.6k a month, even after COVID depressed rental prices. People are by no means being forced to live there because they have no place left to go.
      - xvedejas 6y ago
        Well, because of NIMBYism, most US cities can only legally build urban housing in industrial or formerly industrial areas that lack mobilized neighborhood associations. So we're going in the opposite direction, thanks in part to zoning.
    - jrockway 6y ago
- jariel 6y ago
  Noise pollution is a real thing. All of our industrial equipment should be designed with this in mind. Back up beepers are considerably louder than they need to be. Weirdly, the police sirens in Germany towns like Frankfurt are incessant - it's a very piercing sound, they use them often, all day long, and the sound bounces through the walls of the town which is 5 stories everywhere and narrow streets. In a North American city you rarely actually hear sirens - maybe for firetrucks. The low hum of gasonline engines really adds up, the electrics are so much nicer that way but I fear accidents.
  - zip1234 6y ago
    Noise from vehicles in North America is incessant and pretty much not regulated/enforced whatsoever. Even electric vehicles are just as loud at speeds greater than about ~30 mph. You can hear it all hours of the day if you are within several miles of an interstate.
    - bobthepanda 6y ago
      Above a certain speed the main sounds you're hearing are tires against the road surface. At low speeds engine noise and braking are predominant, and the former for electric is actually a problem because people are used to hearing the sound of ICE cars when judging to cross the street. The worst bit is that sound walls, at least the ones deployed in America, do not even really fix the problem, because they can reflect sound (so they may reduce immediate area noise but increase it farther away). You would probably want something pretty much like a tunnel.
  - chrisbolt 6y ago
    > Back up beepers are considerably louder than they need to be. Tom Scott has a fascinating video that describes how this is changing: https://youtu.be/fa28lIGuxq8 https://youtu.be/fa28lIGuxq8
- ABCLAW 6y ago
  The law of nuisance isn't about 'people fitting each other'. It's about securing the rights of property holders. If someone is running a train yard and hasn't obtained encumbrances on surrounding properties to allow for permitted noise, that's on them. Do your due diligence when developing industrial properties, folks.
- rektide 6y ago
  > Do due diligence before picking a place to live, folks. Frankly houses for sale & rent should come with a sound recording of the last two weeks of use Dilligence is hard as heck; who knows if there's som neighbor that habitually does carpentry at 2AM or whose dog goes apeshit a couple times a week or a delivery service va blasting it's noisemaker at 5AM. I agree about doing due diligence but a lot is hard to account for. We are so much at the mercy of the outside world. Maybe the neighbors AC sucks & reverbs something wicked. How would a winter home buyer find that out? Or maybe it's the heater that's a problem. And it just doesn't feel like we're in a world where people tend to be open to working together to improve things.
- crazygringo 6y ago
  > Do due diligence before picking a place to live, folks. Honestly, aside from a few obvious things, "due diligence" is often pretty much impossible. If you move into an apartment in the winter, there's zero way of knowing that teens like to blare window-shakingly loud music in the park across the street every other day in the summer. Or that the seemingly innocuous speed bump in front of your building will cause the 10's of garbage trucks that race by at maximum speed at 2 am each night to rattle and bump with such a force that each one wakes you up. Or that a month after you move in, you get a new neighbor next door who blares bass-thumping music all day long while you're trying to work. Or that the building next door starts to undergo gut renovation and welcome to jackhammering all day long. Except for super-obvious stuff like is this a street with noisy bars/clubs, or yeah an active train yard -- which isn't even "due diligence" it's just keeping your eyes open -- there really isn't much you can do ahead of time. You just have to accept it'll always be a gamble.
bigjimmyk3 6y ago
Growing up in a rural area, I have mostly good memories of roosters crowing across the road. I have no idea where the trope of crowing at sunrise came from, as they seemed to do it 24/7. Also, "smells of the countryside" gave me a good chuckle.
ogre_codes 6y ago
At least where I live in the US, this isn't an issue. In fact I wouldn't mind seeing some constraints added where I am. A neighbor on a 1/3 acre plot with a rooster is no big deal. That same neighbor with 8 roosters crowing more or less all day long is a major headache. Not something I'm taking anyone to court over.
- fennecfoxen 6y ago
  It won't go down like that, unfortunately; it'll be a blanket set of restrictions that are selectively enforced, mostly to harass the Hispanic families who have moved into the neighborhood
  - ogre_codes 6y ago
    It is definitely selectively enforced. Not a lot of Hispanic families around here, but I saw a fair bit of that when I lived in Central California. The Mexican-Americans on my former block are having the last laugh though as one by one every house that sells on the block is being bought by their friends and family.
JJMcJ 6y ago
Common in farming areas near cities in USA. People move to be close to nature but the farmers are out spreading manure at 5:30 AM and trucks are going up and down the "quiet country lane" all day.
- rusabd 6y ago
  I don't mind manure, but pesticides and other chemicals could be nasty. Also farmland is monocrop desert in USA
  - JJMcJ 6y ago
    This is true, but in the nature of farming areas today. Moving there and it's what you will face.
  - wott 6y ago
    > I don't mind manure I usually don't, but I once had a neighbour who found it clever to spray liquid manure through the water cannons which are normally used for watering maize... I just let you imagine for a minute the atmosphere in the whole municipality when he was doing that.
  - dejv 6y ago
    Don't know about USA, but in Europe there are very strict laws about pesticide use (things like wind speed, droplet size and buffer zones) to make general public safe. As a certified agronomist (person who give orders to start spraying) but to some extend also tractor driver you are personally liable to follow the rules. I am sure similar legislative is in use as well.
alliao 6y ago
I'd laugh if it was an astroturf campaign sponsored by Monsanto, roundup smell is now enshrined in EU law!
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
ur-whale 6y ago
I remember reading a Cato institute article about France in the 90's that went in a fairly deep analysis to conclude that France had basically chosen to become a country-sized theme park. In that context, such a law makes complete sense, I guess.
- dTal 6y ago
  I'd take anything from the Cato institute with a boulder of halite, seeing as it's an anti-regulation propaganda outfit funded by billionaires who consider any constraint on their ability to convert natural resources into personal wealth as a grave moral outrage.
  - easyas101110110 6y ago
    Koch billionaire libertarian propaganda farm that released look-alike "IPCC" reports saying climate change was a hoax.
  - ur-whale 6y ago
    Your argument is basically an ad hominem, and not something that is particularly welcome on HN, as you probably are aware. Whomever is financing the Cato institute is completely irrelevant to the argument made. Had I not cited the source, would you have actually considered the point?
- simias 6y ago
  Well tourism is a pretty important revenue source for France and many other European countries, that's not particularly surprising. If you want to see the non-theme park France feel free to ask, I can give you the address of my favourite kebab in a 70's style banlieue dortoir, you'll love it.
  - wott 6y ago
    Even in rural France, outside a few picturesque places and views, the reality has become pretty ugly in the last 30 or 40 years (and it keeps accelerating). In many villages (even small ones with less than a couple hundred inhabitants, even quite remote from cities), private housing development have spread around the historical village, generally in an anarchic manner (one can mock some forms of very organised housing, but anarchy is worse, it just pops up here and there with no thought for infrastructure, openings, or future development). Meanwhile the historical village is dying, houses are crumbling. Shops close in the centre and are replaced by shoebox monstrosities in the surroundings, made for cars. Often the population is not growing, it just wastes a lot more space, and does it in a relatively ugly way. As the condition of the historical village degrades, it also becomes ugly. At my place, the population keeps decreasing, it is down to only one fifth of what it once was, and yet the spread accelerates. For foreigners: just fool around Google Maps and StreetView, to have a look at the spread around many village kernels, and at the village entrances. A random starting point (one in many thousands): https://www.google.fr/maps/@43.4947119,0.923205,1184m/data=!3m1!1e3 https://www.google.fr/maps/@43.4947119,0.923205,1184m/data=!... Look at the spread (as more or less organised areas, but also along roads). Then try to find the historical village limits, see how small it was compared to now. Well, the number of inhabitants was about the same as now.
vfclists 6y ago
Do you smell that? Do you smell that son? What? Pig manure. There is no smell like that. I love the smell of pig manure in the morning. ... It smells like bacon.
jeffrallen 6y ago
I live in rural Switzerland, and I can tell you the sensory heritage is a real thing. I came for it. I love the sound and smells of having cows on the other side of my back fence. I would be very sad if a city dweller arrived and disrupted my quality of life by interfering with my neighbor's farm.
- wott 6y ago
  Thing is there are assholes on both sides. And both sides may use laws to their convenience to keep being assholes. I have a neighbour in my village (and I mean, really 'in') who has several cocks, and he also has peacocks! The first ones start around 2 AM, the other ones basically never stop. I leave 300 yards away and I hear everything through the double window, every night. Oh, as I said peacocks, you probably thought "that neighbour must have a large property, a real park". Yeah, no, he has a standard detached house with its small piece of land, and the hens, the cocks, the peacocks spend their time on neighbours properties: a few remaining meadows (nobody really minds) and, what is more trouble, the gardens (they ate all my cabbages one year in a garden I have even farther from their place). Also, sometimes people complain against traditional things, but they often complain about 'industrial' size farms. Farming has changed a lot in France in 30 years (even though it still operates at much smaller scale than in countries like the USA, the sizes and modes of exploitation have dramatically changed). So people often complain about a massive pig farm, a massive poultry farm with several thousands chickens, and so on. In my village (coming back a bit earlier in time), people used to have 1 to 4 cows in a tiny stable, and would take them to the meadows. Now the few remaining so-called agricultors have a hundred cows in a hangar (often all year long). Actually they don't have a hundred cows: they have 99 cows, because starting with the 100th, the extra cows are no more subsidised...
  - wott 6y ago
    I add another examples about changes. I grew up in the early 80s in a very small village, in a very rural area: the parents of all pupils were farmers, except mine. Cereals production was dominant, with a part of cattle and poultry. Nowadays there are problems between farmers and non-farmers. Non-farmers will complain about farmers. Farmers will complain about the complaints from non-farmers. Which is right? Farmers will tell that those assholes from the cities do not understand their work, that they must adapt to traditions if they come settle there, and so on. For examples, that harvesting at 2 AM is normal because it is cooler. I am sorry but this is somewhat bullshit. Or complete bullshit. When I was a kid, they would never work at night, except for a real emergency (and they didn't have air-conditioning). The truth is, that those farmers have bought a lot more land, that the surface of each farm has tripled or quadrupled, and therefore they have to harvest 3 or 4 times more in the same time period or even in less time because they have specialised in a single activity (giving up on cattle for example) and must do all their surface at the same moment instead of just a part. There is no tradition in that, it is brand new. Also, nobody had breathing troubles because of harvesting when I was a kid. But now the harvesters are larger, faster, and they make clouds of fine dust which spread far. I am not normally asthmatic, but last times I visited there at harvest period, I had breathing problem because of that dust. Again, zero tradition there. Even with mechanised agriculture of WW2- 1980s, it was not a thing. So the recent changes are creating true problems, and complaining about does not always mean being an intolerant entitled asshole. Those problems cannot be swept away in the name of tradition. If farmer had remained traditional in their techniques, there wouldn't be such problems and people wouldn't complain about them.
Glawen 6y ago
I am glad that they passed this law in France. People from the cities are coming to the countryside, thinking they own it and they can remove any nuisance which does not fit they idealized view of the countryside. They are dead wrong, life in rural area is all about having good relationship with your neighbors because people help each other there. I remember when a storm hit the region, everyone got out, cleared the trees on the road and repaired each other houses. I grew up in a village in France: the neighbor has a rooster and the house is next to a church. When I took my wife, a city dweller, to the village, she told me she couldn't sleep past 6am due to the noises from the church (bells ring at 6, then every hour) and the rooster. I am so used to it that my brain filters any rooster or church bells sound.
- Wistar 6y ago
  Many a small airport in the U.S. has met its fate by the complaints of newcomers.
- leppr 6y ago
  That's all fine and I agree with your comment, but in the legal case that's the subject of the article, the rooster owners were the new neighbors, and the area looks fairly urban.
  - Glawen 6y ago
    not at all, the rooster's owner, Corinne Fesseau, lives there since 35 years. The plaintiffs bought the house in 2003, and come there only during summer. source: https://www.ladepeche.fr/2019/05/13/ile-doleron-parce-quil-gene-des-touristes-le-coq-maurice-aura-un-proces-pour-nuisances-sonores,8197369.php https://www.ladepeche.fr/2019/05/13/ile-doleron-parce-quil-g...
    - leppr 6y ago
      Guess the article was wrong then.
- youeseh 6y ago
  Do you think this law will succeed in making people who are moving to the countryside from the cities to befriend their neighbors?
antpls 6y ago
Those types of law hurt my feelings. I have studied and I'm working so hard every day, all of this to make sure the countryside is stuck in the past? It makes me want to leave France.
- ineedasername 6y ago
  It sounds more like a law saying "if you want to live in the past by having roosters, you're allowed to"
- yamrzou 6y ago
  I wouldn't call that "stuck in the past". I think it is a very beautiful lifestyle, to be able to live away from the industrialization and closer to the nature.
- Bayart 6y ago
  Well leave then. I don't know who you think you are, but the fate of the nation isn't resting on your shoulders, and living in the countryside doesn't makes us lesser beings for it.
CalRobert 6y ago
I moved from a city to the countryside a couple years ago, and I think what startled me is how loud it is. I confess I'd expected quiet but farm equipment, tractors, etc. make quite a lot of noise. Fortunately, the dawn chorus is nearly deafening and brings me joy every morning. It's been great, but now I realize that a few acres an hour from the city isn't quite enough for solitude, you're mostly in a working food factory (fair enough I suppose); if you want real quiet it seems you might need 50-100+ acres many hours away.
- devchix 6y ago
  >what startled me is how loud it is Went on holiday to rustic Italy. Woke up by the freaking birds before 6, so, so loud! Louder than I've ever heard birds before, thousands of insolent cheep chirp squawk. It was amazing! I was/am a city dweller and was expecting Boccherini.
- wott 6y ago
  > I confess I'd expected quiet but farm equipment, tractors, etc. make quite a lot of noise. Well, they are less noisy than they used to be (think of the change of noise emissions for cars, though added dampening body), but the usage is now constant. > I realize that a few acres an hour from the city isn't quite enough for solitude, you're mostly in a working food factory (fair enough I suppose); if you want real quiet it seems you might need 50-100+ acres many hours away. If you have meadows around, that's easier: the tractors only pays quick visits in the course of 3 days, once or twice a year, to cut/ted/make bunches of hay. Cutting grass is faster than ploughing a field, it requires less power, and less operations are needed along the year. And it smells good :) Then you have the cattle, but cattle in a meadow is not a nuisance generally. > if you want real quiet it seems you might need 50-100+ acres many hours away. But then you are the one who must maintain all those acres :-)
blackbear_ 6y ago
Related read from the economist: https://www.economist.com/christmas-specials/2020/12/16/lockdowns-have-taught-the-world-about-isolation https://www.economist.com/christmas-specials/2020/12/16/lock...
karaterobot 6y ago
I haven't read the text of the law, and with only a couple years of disused collegiate French language classes and no French legal training whatsoever under my belt, I don't think I could understand it if I tried. So, I might be wrong, or well off the mark here, but... [The disclaimer is longer than comment, but here goes nothing] ... This sounds like it might result in unexpected and undesirable outcomes. Are rural French communities really so invariant over time and space that you can set their community standards in stone?
- dgellow 6y ago
  To answer your question: no

105 points by yamrzou 6y ago

People have odd expectations that their new neighborhoods should fit them and not the other way around. I’m reminded of a situation in New York City where a couple moved into a fancy new apartment building next to an active train yard and then proceeded to sue for noise because the train yard was 24/7. Do due diligence before picking a place to live, folks.

kayodelycaon 6y ago
> then proceeded to sue for noise Oh that’s going to go over well. Some people in my neighborhood tried suing and now we have every train blowing their horns through this entire section of the city. A dozen times a day and many of those at night. It’s hard for me to not laugh at my neighbors every time it happens.
- lisper 6y ago
  Unfortunately, the same thing also happens around small airports, and there the NIMBYs-come-lately often prevail. https://www.bjtonline.com/business-jet-news/runway-removal-to-commence-in-santa-monica https://www.bjtonline.com/business-jet-news/runway-removal-t...
  - Symbiote 6y ago
    The opposite also happens: the approach to London Heathrow gives wonderful views over London, but at least a million people suffer from more-or-less constant aircraft noise and pollution, except for a few hours overnight. Further expansion was approved in 2018, when one of the local MPs — Boris Johnson, who had promised to "lie down in front of bulldozers" to prevent expansion — was conveniently on a trip abroad during the vote it Parliament. (The areas of London overflown are a mix of wealthy, average and poor-ish, left-voting and right-voting, it's far too large an area to wave away as X group of people complaining.)
    - JJMcJ 6y ago
      In Bay Area, every time approaches to our three busy airports are changed there is a lot of bellyaching, mostly from rich areas like Saratoga and Woodside. Usually summarized by "Why don't you fly over those places were poor people live?" Made worse because well off areas tend to be in the hills, and so planes are lower over the ground.
      - dmckeon 6y ago
        Much of the recent complaining is due to concentration of near-ground routes as a side-effect of the NextGen routing system. http://soseastbay.org/jet-noise-in-a-nutshell-nexgen/ http://soseastbay.org/jet-noise-in-a-nutshell-nexgen/ https://www.faa.gov/nextgen/faqs/ https://www.faa.gov/nextgen/faqs/
        therockspush 6y ago
        The sad part is NextGen was supposed to allow planes to approach at higher altitudes and descend with engines idled to reduce noise.
    - Veen 6y ago
      The Government won that vote with a majority of nearly 300. Johnson’s absence didn’t make the slightest difference to the outcome.
- kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
  I have a commuter line next to me with a station 1000 ft. away. The early morning trains mute their horns and it's not very noticeable. With freight, I wouldn't expect them to bother but the FRA does allow for quiet trains.
  - kayodelycaon 6y ago
    I'm 240 ft from a freight line. :)
recursive 6y ago
Reminds me of the slow downfall of the Laguna Seca race track. https://jalopnik.com/the-absurd-community-fight-that-could-cripple-one-of-am-1736668909 https://jalopnik.com/the-absurd-community-fight-that-could-c... Short version: People move in next to an established race track and learn they don't like the sound of race tracks. You'll be shocked at what happens next!
- randompwd 6y ago
  Are you being purposefully misleading? People moved in and then the race track tried to get noise restrictions from the 1950s changed to benefit them.(increasing no-muffler days(wtf?) and opening race course on sunday) From your linked propaganda piece: > restrictions on use set in the 1950s. I'd be heavily on side of people wanting a peaceful place to live than to cater to ignorant arseholes who don't want to use mufflers cos they like the sound it makes.
  - s1artibartfast 6y ago
    Unfortunately, this often a necessity strategy in the US legal system, where you have to exercise your rights to maintain them. This could’ve been advised directly from their legal team. If you build a raceway with the expectation of being able to scale usage based on demand and need,End it appears that this is coming into jeopardy, they need to scale up sooner to establish president as more people move in. There is a similar problem with farm water usage where farmers are incentivized to waste water due to a use it or lose it legal situation
  - JJMcJ 6y ago
    Big difference between race tracks, which are entertainment, and farming, which is where our food comes from.
  - recursive 6y ago
    If your definition of a peaceful place to live includes not hearing a race track, I can think of a few better strategies than moving in next to a race track.
- 6y ago
vmception 6y ago
Hudson Yards? Because I was always wondering how that would go
- bobthepanda 6y ago
  Sunnyside. Hudson Yards completely caps the yard over with buildings so I don’t think you can hear it at all.
  - vmception 6y ago
    Another exhibit in the irresistible allure of Manhattan
gambiting 6y ago
Tbf, what also sometimes happens is that you move somewhere, discover that a local business is breaking noise pollution regulations, but when you complain you are met with aggression because "it has always been like this, you should have done your research". And maybe that's true, but we have laws about some of this stuff for a reason - if they are being broken then I don't see problem with complaining.
- bobthepanda 6y ago
  That would imply the regulations are right, correct, and made with diverse public input to represent all views.
  - gambiting 6y ago
    But I mean, what kind of the start to discussion is this. Should I not report a burglary either, since maybe the laws dealing with burglars fail to take into account someone's difficult life situation and don't reflect the diverse views of our citizens on the subject of non violent crime and punishments associated with it? Like, if I move somewhere where I know that the noise regulations mandate low noise after 10pm and there's a pub making a racket at midnight, of course I'm going to report it, the fact that it's been there for 200 years is literally completely irrelevant.
    - bobthepanda 6y ago
      Or, at least in the parent article, the regulations were found to be nonsense, and so a law was passed to revise them. Lots of well meaning laws have unintended consequences. A large contributing factor to out-of-control Californian wildfires was that prescribed fires to thin the amount of combustible material were often stopped by the air quality board.
Blikkentrekker 6y ago
It is more so that if a country have maximum sound regulations, then either the law should define exceptions for certain animals, and if it do not, it should be treated the same. I would assume there are certain maximum sound volume regulations in France as they exist in many places. “tradition” is all too commonly used as an argument to break the law. I do not believe it should play a factor at all whether something happened in the past, merely whether it violate the law. If France have nationwide rules about sound levels and the rooster exceeded them, then that is all the diligence a man needs to have done. One may certainly expect that the government upholds the law uniformly throughout one's country.
- bobthepanda 6y ago
  That would imply a law is always absolutely correct. A legal system is ultimately made by humans who are fallible. And laws, particularly in the US, are usually created by one wealth/social class of people, and historically not made without diverse public input. I don't really care for holding such strict interpretations of law in high regard. It's not as if France doesn't have issues with perceived political elitism, given the existence of the yellow vests.
  - Blikkentrekker 6y ago
    Certainly the power to decide whether laws are “correct” in a specific, rather than general sense is far too much power for any one party to have? If laws could be so easily ignored, we might as well do away with them.
polishdude20 6y ago
There's another aide of this coin which is also important. There's that whole urbanism movement which is all about making our town and cities more suited to humans. Making the streets more walkable, reducing traffic, increasing bike infrastructure, increasing green spaces. These are all things that people have the right to request in a big city because it makes living there better for everyone.
- bobthepanda 6y ago
  And where does the freight in a big city come from? It doesn't just teleport in. Freight trains are probably the least bad way for freight to enter a city, given their efficiency and relative greenness. But they do need to be unloaded, maintained, and turned around somewhere, and wherever that is going to happen is going to be noisy.
  - dbspin 6y ago
    This is an argument against zoning residential properties near freight yards, airports etc. Not a criticism of making cities more livable. No one should have to tolerate that level of noise pollution. It's actively hazardous to mental health.
    - bobthepanda 6y ago
      One could also do due diligence when looking for residential property to live in. The neighborhood in question has 1 bedrooms starting at $2.6k a month, even after COVID depressed rental prices. People are by no means being forced to live there because they have no place left to go.
    - xvedejas 6y ago
      Well, because of NIMBYism, most US cities can only legally build urban housing in industrial or formerly industrial areas that lack mobilized neighborhood associations. So we're going in the opposite direction, thanks in part to zoning.
  - jrockway 6y ago
jariel 6y ago
Noise pollution is a real thing. All of our industrial equipment should be designed with this in mind. Back up beepers are considerably louder than they need to be. Weirdly, the police sirens in Germany towns like Frankfurt are incessant - it's a very piercing sound, they use them often, all day long, and the sound bounces through the walls of the town which is 5 stories everywhere and narrow streets. In a North American city you rarely actually hear sirens - maybe for firetrucks. The low hum of gasonline engines really adds up, the electrics are so much nicer that way but I fear accidents.
- zip1234 6y ago
  Noise from vehicles in North America is incessant and pretty much not regulated/enforced whatsoever. Even electric vehicles are just as loud at speeds greater than about ~30 mph. You can hear it all hours of the day if you are within several miles of an interstate.
  - bobthepanda 6y ago
    Above a certain speed the main sounds you're hearing are tires against the road surface. At low speeds engine noise and braking are predominant, and the former for electric is actually a problem because people are used to hearing the sound of ICE cars when judging to cross the street. The worst bit is that sound walls, at least the ones deployed in America, do not even really fix the problem, because they can reflect sound (so they may reduce immediate area noise but increase it farther away). You would probably want something pretty much like a tunnel.
- chrisbolt 6y ago
  > Back up beepers are considerably louder than they need to be. Tom Scott has a fascinating video that describes how this is changing: https://youtu.be/fa28lIGuxq8 https://youtu.be/fa28lIGuxq8
ABCLAW 6y ago
The law of nuisance isn't about 'people fitting each other'. It's about securing the rights of property holders. If someone is running a train yard and hasn't obtained encumbrances on surrounding properties to allow for permitted noise, that's on them. Do your due diligence when developing industrial properties, folks.
rektide 6y ago
> Do due diligence before picking a place to live, folks. Frankly houses for sale & rent should come with a sound recording of the last two weeks of use Dilligence is hard as heck; who knows if there's som neighbor that habitually does carpentry at 2AM or whose dog goes apeshit a couple times a week or a delivery service va blasting it's noisemaker at 5AM. I agree about doing due diligence but a lot is hard to account for. We are so much at the mercy of the outside world. Maybe the neighbors AC sucks & reverbs something wicked. How would a winter home buyer find that out? Or maybe it's the heater that's a problem. And it just doesn't feel like we're in a world where people tend to be open to working together to improve things.
crazygringo 6y ago
> Do due diligence before picking a place to live, folks. Honestly, aside from a few obvious things, "due diligence" is often pretty much impossible. If you move into an apartment in the winter, there's zero way of knowing that teens like to blare window-shakingly loud music in the park across the street every other day in the summer. Or that the seemingly innocuous speed bump in front of your building will cause the 10's of garbage trucks that race by at maximum speed at 2 am each night to rattle and bump with such a force that each one wakes you up. Or that a month after you move in, you get a new neighbor next door who blares bass-thumping music all day long while you're trying to work. Or that the building next door starts to undergo gut renovation and welcome to jackhammering all day long. Except for super-obvious stuff like is this a street with noisy bars/clubs, or yeah an active train yard -- which isn't even "due diligence" it's just keeping your eyes open -- there really isn't much you can do ahead of time. You just have to accept it'll always be a gamble.

bigjimmyk3 6y ago

Growing up in a rural area, I have mostly good memories of roosters crowing across the road. I have no idea where the trope of crowing at sunrise came from, as they seemed to do it 24/7. Also, "smells of the countryside" gave me a good chuckle.

ogre_codes 6y ago

At least where I live in the US, this isn't an issue. In fact I wouldn't mind seeing some constraints added where I am. A neighbor on a 1/3 acre plot with a rooster is no big deal. That same neighbor with 8 roosters crowing more or less all day long is a major headache. Not something I'm taking anyone to court over.

fennecfoxen 6y ago
It won't go down like that, unfortunately; it'll be a blanket set of restrictions that are selectively enforced, mostly to harass the Hispanic families who have moved into the neighborhood
- ogre_codes 6y ago
  It is definitely selectively enforced. Not a lot of Hispanic families around here, but I saw a fair bit of that when I lived in Central California. The Mexican-Americans on my former block are having the last laugh though as one by one every house that sells on the block is being bought by their friends and family.

JJMcJ 6y ago

Common in farming areas near cities in USA. People move to be close to nature but the farmers are out spreading manure at 5:30 AM and trucks are going up and down the "quiet country lane" all day.

rusabd 6y ago
I don't mind manure, but pesticides and other chemicals could be nasty. Also farmland is monocrop desert in USA
- JJMcJ 6y ago
  This is true, but in the nature of farming areas today. Moving there and it's what you will face.
- wott 6y ago
  > I don't mind manure I usually don't, but I once had a neighbour who found it clever to spray liquid manure through the water cannons which are normally used for watering maize... I just let you imagine for a minute the atmosphere in the whole municipality when he was doing that.
- dejv 6y ago
  Don't know about USA, but in Europe there are very strict laws about pesticide use (things like wind speed, droplet size and buffer zones) to make general public safe. As a certified agronomist (person who give orders to start spraying) but to some extend also tractor driver you are personally liable to follow the rules. I am sure similar legislative is in use as well.

alliao 6y ago

I'd laugh if it was an astroturf campaign sponsored by Monsanto, roundup smell is now enshrined in EU law!

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

ur-whale 6y ago

I remember reading a Cato institute article about France in the 90's that went in a fairly deep analysis to conclude that France had basically chosen to become a country-sized theme park. In that context, such a law makes complete sense, I guess.

dTal 6y ago
I'd take anything from the Cato institute with a boulder of halite, seeing as it's an anti-regulation propaganda outfit funded by billionaires who consider any constraint on their ability to convert natural resources into personal wealth as a grave moral outrage.
- easyas101110110 6y ago
  Koch billionaire libertarian propaganda farm that released look-alike "IPCC" reports saying climate change was a hoax.
- ur-whale 6y ago
  Your argument is basically an ad hominem, and not something that is particularly welcome on HN, as you probably are aware. Whomever is financing the Cato institute is completely irrelevant to the argument made. Had I not cited the source, would you have actually considered the point?
simias 6y ago
Well tourism is a pretty important revenue source for France and many other European countries, that's not particularly surprising. If you want to see the non-theme park France feel free to ask, I can give you the address of my favourite kebab in a 70's style banlieue dortoir, you'll love it.
- wott 6y ago
  Even in rural France, outside a few picturesque places and views, the reality has become pretty ugly in the last 30 or 40 years (and it keeps accelerating). In many villages (even small ones with less than a couple hundred inhabitants, even quite remote from cities), private housing development have spread around the historical village, generally in an anarchic manner (one can mock some forms of very organised housing, but anarchy is worse, it just pops up here and there with no thought for infrastructure, openings, or future development). Meanwhile the historical village is dying, houses are crumbling. Shops close in the centre and are replaced by shoebox monstrosities in the surroundings, made for cars. Often the population is not growing, it just wastes a lot more space, and does it in a relatively ugly way. As the condition of the historical village degrades, it also becomes ugly. At my place, the population keeps decreasing, it is down to only one fifth of what it once was, and yet the spread accelerates. For foreigners: just fool around Google Maps and StreetView, to have a look at the spread around many village kernels, and at the village entrances. A random starting point (one in many thousands): https://www.google.fr/maps/@43.4947119,0.923205,1184m/data=!3m1!1e3 https://www.google.fr/maps/@43.4947119,0.923205,1184m/data=!... Look at the spread (as more or less organised areas, but also along roads). Then try to find the historical village limits, see how small it was compared to now. Well, the number of inhabitants was about the same as now.

vfclists 6y ago

Do you smell that? Do you smell that son? What? Pig manure. There is no smell like that. I love the smell of pig manure in the morning. ... It smells like bacon.

jeffrallen 6y ago

I live in rural Switzerland, and I can tell you the sensory heritage is a real thing. I came for it. I love the sound and smells of having cows on the other side of my back fence. I would be very sad if a city dweller arrived and disrupted my quality of life by interfering with my neighbor's farm.

wott 6y ago
Thing is there are assholes on both sides. And both sides may use laws to their convenience to keep being assholes. I have a neighbour in my village (and I mean, really 'in') who has several cocks, and he also has peacocks! The first ones start around 2 AM, the other ones basically never stop. I leave 300 yards away and I hear everything through the double window, every night. Oh, as I said peacocks, you probably thought "that neighbour must have a large property, a real park". Yeah, no, he has a standard detached house with its small piece of land, and the hens, the cocks, the peacocks spend their time on neighbours properties: a few remaining meadows (nobody really minds) and, what is more trouble, the gardens (they ate all my cabbages one year in a garden I have even farther from their place). Also, sometimes people complain against traditional things, but they often complain about 'industrial' size farms. Farming has changed a lot in France in 30 years (even though it still operates at much smaller scale than in countries like the USA, the sizes and modes of exploitation have dramatically changed). So people often complain about a massive pig farm, a massive poultry farm with several thousands chickens, and so on. In my village (coming back a bit earlier in time), people used to have 1 to 4 cows in a tiny stable, and would take them to the meadows. Now the few remaining so-called agricultors have a hundred cows in a hangar (often all year long). Actually they don't have a hundred cows: they have 99 cows, because starting with the 100th, the extra cows are no more subsidised...
- wott 6y ago
  I add another examples about changes. I grew up in the early 80s in a very small village, in a very rural area: the parents of all pupils were farmers, except mine. Cereals production was dominant, with a part of cattle and poultry. Nowadays there are problems between farmers and non-farmers. Non-farmers will complain about farmers. Farmers will complain about the complaints from non-farmers. Which is right? Farmers will tell that those assholes from the cities do not understand their work, that they must adapt to traditions if they come settle there, and so on. For examples, that harvesting at 2 AM is normal because it is cooler. I am sorry but this is somewhat bullshit. Or complete bullshit. When I was a kid, they would never work at night, except for a real emergency (and they didn't have air-conditioning). The truth is, that those farmers have bought a lot more land, that the surface of each farm has tripled or quadrupled, and therefore they have to harvest 3 or 4 times more in the same time period or even in less time because they have specialised in a single activity (giving up on cattle for example) and must do all their surface at the same moment instead of just a part. There is no tradition in that, it is brand new. Also, nobody had breathing troubles because of harvesting when I was a kid. But now the harvesters are larger, faster, and they make clouds of fine dust which spread far. I am not normally asthmatic, but last times I visited there at harvest period, I had breathing problem because of that dust. Again, zero tradition there. Even with mechanised agriculture of WW2- 1980s, it was not a thing. So the recent changes are creating true problems, and complaining about does not always mean being an intolerant entitled asshole. Those problems cannot be swept away in the name of tradition. If farmer had remained traditional in their techniques, there wouldn't be such problems and people wouldn't complain about them.

Glawen 6y ago

I am glad that they passed this law in France. People from the cities are coming to the countryside, thinking they own it and they can remove any nuisance which does not fit they idealized view of the countryside. They are dead wrong, life in rural area is all about having good relationship with your neighbors because people help each other there. I remember when a storm hit the region, everyone got out, cleared the trees on the road and repaired each other houses. I grew up in a village in France: the neighbor has a rooster and the house is next to a church. When I took my wife, a city dweller, to the village, she told me she couldn't sleep past 6am due to the noises from the church (bells ring at 6, then every hour) and the rooster. I am so used to it that my brain filters any rooster or church bells sound.

Wistar 6y ago
Many a small airport in the U.S. has met its fate by the complaints of newcomers.
leppr 6y ago
That's all fine and I agree with your comment, but in the legal case that's the subject of the article, the rooster owners were the new neighbors, and the area looks fairly urban.
- Glawen 6y ago
  not at all, the rooster's owner, Corinne Fesseau, lives there since 35 years. The plaintiffs bought the house in 2003, and come there only during summer. source: https://www.ladepeche.fr/2019/05/13/ile-doleron-parce-quil-gene-des-touristes-le-coq-maurice-aura-un-proces-pour-nuisances-sonores,8197369.php https://www.ladepeche.fr/2019/05/13/ile-doleron-parce-quil-g...
  - leppr 6y ago
    Guess the article was wrong then.
youeseh 6y ago
Do you think this law will succeed in making people who are moving to the countryside from the cities to befriend their neighbors?

antpls 6y ago

Those types of law hurt my feelings. I have studied and I'm working so hard every day, all of this to make sure the countryside is stuck in the past? It makes me want to leave France.

ineedasername 6y ago
It sounds more like a law saying "if you want to live in the past by having roosters, you're allowed to"
yamrzou 6y ago
I wouldn't call that "stuck in the past". I think it is a very beautiful lifestyle, to be able to live away from the industrialization and closer to the nature.
Bayart 6y ago
Well leave then. I don't know who you think you are, but the fate of the nation isn't resting on your shoulders, and living in the countryside doesn't makes us lesser beings for it.

CalRobert 6y ago

I moved from a city to the countryside a couple years ago, and I think what startled me is how loud it is. I confess I'd expected quiet but farm equipment, tractors, etc. make quite a lot of noise. Fortunately, the dawn chorus is nearly deafening and brings me joy every morning. It's been great, but now I realize that a few acres an hour from the city isn't quite enough for solitude, you're mostly in a working food factory (fair enough I suppose); if you want real quiet it seems you might need 50-100+ acres many hours away.

devchix 6y ago
>what startled me is how loud it is Went on holiday to rustic Italy. Woke up by the freaking birds before 6, so, so loud! Louder than I've ever heard birds before, thousands of insolent cheep chirp squawk. It was amazing! I was/am a city dweller and was expecting Boccherini.
wott 6y ago
> I confess I'd expected quiet but farm equipment, tractors, etc. make quite a lot of noise. Well, they are less noisy than they used to be (think of the change of noise emissions for cars, though added dampening body), but the usage is now constant. > I realize that a few acres an hour from the city isn't quite enough for solitude, you're mostly in a working food factory (fair enough I suppose); if you want real quiet it seems you might need 50-100+ acres many hours away. If you have meadows around, that's easier: the tractors only pays quick visits in the course of 3 days, once or twice a year, to cut/ted/make bunches of hay. Cutting grass is faster than ploughing a field, it requires less power, and less operations are needed along the year. And it smells good :) Then you have the cattle, but cattle in a meadow is not a nuisance generally. > if you want real quiet it seems you might need 50-100+ acres many hours away. But then you are the one who must maintain all those acres :-)

blackbear_ 6y ago

Related read from the economist: https://www.economist.com/christmas-specials/2020/12/16/lockdowns-have-taught-the-world-about-isolation https://www.economist.com/christmas-specials/2020/12/16/lock...

karaterobot 6y ago

I haven't read the text of the law, and with only a couple years of disused collegiate French language classes and no French legal training whatsoever under my belt, I don't think I could understand it if I tried. So, I might be wrong, or well off the mark here, but... [The disclaimer is longer than comment, but here goes nothing] ... This sounds like it might result in unexpected and undesirable outcomes. Are rural French communities really so invariant over time and space that you can set their community standards in stone?

dgellow 6y ago
To answer your question: no