3 ms·

No sympathy from me on this one. We should not remove longstanding and effective safety features because their sound is displeasing to people far outside the z

No sympathy from me on this one. We should not remove longstanding and effective safety features because their sound is displeasing to people far outside the zone of danger. Put up noise abatement fences. A person walking in my neighborhood was hit by a speeding cop car. The cop had his flashers on but not his siren. As it turned out in court, the local cops had been getting complaints about sirens being too loud and so had begun operating with only flashers when making basic traffic stops at night. Safety had been sacrificed for convenience, leading quickly to a serious accident.

michaelcampbell 5y ago
> effective safety features Are there any studies that quantify this effectiveness?
shados 5y ago
There's more effective methods that create less disturbances. Noise pollution is proven time and time again to be both a physical and mental health hazard. People are subjected to this crap while trying to live their lives in their own home, and brain washed into thinking its ok and to just deal with it. There should be huge pressure to reduce noise pollution when solutions exist. In this case, solutions do exist.
- sandworm101 5y ago
  But this isn't noise pollution. This is noise that serves a safety purpose and is being created deliberately for that purpose. Should we make fire alarms quiet so that people outside the burning building are not inconvenienced? Shall we stop the little beeping noise at crosswalks because not all of us are blind? Abate the noise. Put up barriers. Don't sacrifice the safety of workers for your peace and quiet. The time for such debates is before work begins. Complain at the zoning committee that issued the permits for the construction. Demand that your peace and quiet is more important than allowing new construction or a new business in the area. Demand a proper mitigation plan. Demand that they soundproof surrounding buildings. Don't show up mid-construction and ask people to disable the safety alarms.
  - matkoniecz 5y ago
    Deliberate noise does not mean that it is not a noise pollution, in the same way as light pollution can be caused by deliberately emitted light. If I hear machinery 300m away and 20m lower then at this point it is a pure noise pollution with zero benefit to me[0]. And if it can be made less noticeable from far away without damage to safety then it should be done right now. > Complain at the zoning committee that issued the permits for the construction. Demand that your peace and quiet is more important than allowing new construction or a new business in the area. Making better safety systems is preferable to NIMBYism. ------------- [0] With possible exception for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bucket-wheel_excavator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bucket-wheel_excavator but I am not convinced that beeping would help if I would manage to miss THAT. And if I have Bagger 293 in my room then things already went really wrong and weird.
    - DarylZero 5y ago
      Those things can travel as fast as 0.37 mph so they can sneak up on you.
  - shados 5y ago
    The smoke coming out of a coal powerplant exists for a good reason. Its still pollution. The fire alarm example is a bad one. They don't go off hundreds of times a day for hours on end. If they did, yes, we'd need a different solution. The construction project across my street has been going on for 6 years. 6 years of beep beep beep beep. There is technology and solutions that serve the same safety purpose but do it better. We can use directional beeper alarms, they can use different noise patterns and frequencies that are more easily blocked by windows and are easier to hear by people near by. They don't need to be as loud, too. There's no reason a backup alarm needs to be audible from 5 blocks in FRONT of the truck when its going BACKWARD. > Don't show up mid-construction and ask people to disable the safety alarms. What kind of strawman is this? Folks are asking for better safety code so that future construction can be handled safer with less disturbance. Not asking for a truck on a construction site right now turn off the alarm.
sailingparrot 5y ago
TFA is not talking about just removing backing alert sound, but replacing it by another one that fades much faster. Are you really in danger of getting crushed by a truck if said truck is 200m away? The article also argues that since the current beep travels very far, you hear it all the time on a construction site even if you are not nearby the backing equipment, and thus you start not paying attention to it anymore. A noise that would fade faster could be safer, because you would hear it less frequently and only when you are actually concerned, making it harder to ignore.
- sandworm101 5y ago
  Try listening to these beeps while wearing proper ear protection. While talking on a radio. Beside a running generator. While you are driving another piece of machinery yourself. Anything loud/penetrating enough to be heard by workers in the immediate area will also be heard by non-workers a great distance away. Policy at my workplace demands that all vehicle backing up, including personal cars, honk their horns twice before doing so. I'm sure the neighbors don't like the noise but after more than a couple accidents it was deemed necessary.
  - mhb 5y ago
    > Policy at my workplace demands that all vehicle backing up So the beepers don't actually even work well enough?
    - sandworm101 5y ago
      Not all vehicles have backup beepers. Those are normally only on things bigger than a van. Personal cars/trucks don't have them.
  - sailingparrot 5y ago
    > Anything loud/penetrating enough to be heard by workers in the immediate area will also be heard by non-workers a great distance away. Yes except not all noises are created equal. A white noise is very different from a single frequency noise and much less disturbing. After all many people even use white noise to block other type of aggravating noises. Here in Montréal all snow removal vehicles are equipped with a white noise backup alarm. It's snowing a lot in winter, so you have huge snow plows that might back up at any time in the middle of an intersection with pedestrians with earphones not paying attention, and I can say first hand that you cannot miss that noise when it's nearby. While at the same time when they are removing snow one block away from my place, you can still hear it but it doesn't prevent you from sleeping. This type of backing alarm has been approved as safe on construction sites by many places. In Canada at least its very commonly used. e.g: https://www.heavyequipmentguide.ca/article/24957/backup-alarm-being-replaced-more-frequently-with-white-noise-by-bc-businesses https://www.heavyequipmentguide.ca/article/24957/backup-alar...
MisterTea 5y ago
> We should not remove longstanding and effective safety features because their sound is displeasing to people far outside the zone of danger. Put up noise abatement fences. From the article: "Those who first mandated the beep thought it was good that it was annoying and impossible to ignore — and thus went for a distance. Because it "travels" like this, on any construction site (or near one) you are hearing them all the time. You become used to them and even start to ignore them, and that is why people still get crushed." The argument isn't about removing the sound but making it less intrusive and more effective at its job. Even in your example of police sirens there was a recent study posted on HN which concluded that loud emergency vehicle sirens causes panic in motorists leading them to make poor snap decisions resulting in accidents.
- shados 5y ago
  > you are hearing them all the time. You become used to them and even start to ignore them, and that is why people still get crushed I don't even work in construction, but I hear these so often every day, day after day, that if there's one coming up behind me, I'll likely get hit. The only way I can live my day to day is by having trained myself to ignore them. It's really useless as a safety measure. I know at least one person (elderly family friend who had perfect hearing) who got squashed by a large truck because she was in the same situation. Didn't bat an eye at the beeping right behind her until it was too late.
thrower123 5y ago
The idea of putting fiddly sensors on heavy equipment gives me the horrors. Better to stick with something rugged and stupid.
efficax 5y ago
The point is that it's not an effective safety feature. If you've ever spent time on a worksite you just hear the beeping constantly, and you start to ignore it
amanaplanacanal 5y ago
Someone driving too fast for the conditions, failing to notice and then striking a pedestrian, points to a different problem than not having the siren on.

michaelcampbell 5y ago

> effective safety features Are there any studies that quantify this effectiveness?

shados 5y ago

There's more effective methods that create less disturbances. Noise pollution is proven time and time again to be both a physical and mental health hazard. People are subjected to this crap while trying to live their lives in their own home, and brain washed into thinking its ok and to just deal with it. There should be huge pressure to reduce noise pollution when solutions exist. In this case, solutions do exist.

sandworm101 5y ago
But this isn't noise pollution. This is noise that serves a safety purpose and is being created deliberately for that purpose. Should we make fire alarms quiet so that people outside the burning building are not inconvenienced? Shall we stop the little beeping noise at crosswalks because not all of us are blind? Abate the noise. Put up barriers. Don't sacrifice the safety of workers for your peace and quiet. The time for such debates is before work begins. Complain at the zoning committee that issued the permits for the construction. Demand that your peace and quiet is more important than allowing new construction or a new business in the area. Demand a proper mitigation plan. Demand that they soundproof surrounding buildings. Don't show up mid-construction and ask people to disable the safety alarms.
- matkoniecz 5y ago
  Deliberate noise does not mean that it is not a noise pollution, in the same way as light pollution can be caused by deliberately emitted light. If I hear machinery 300m away and 20m lower then at this point it is a pure noise pollution with zero benefit to me[0]. And if it can be made less noticeable from far away without damage to safety then it should be done right now. > Complain at the zoning committee that issued the permits for the construction. Demand that your peace and quiet is more important than allowing new construction or a new business in the area. Making better safety systems is preferable to NIMBYism. ------------- [0] With possible exception for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bucket-wheel_excavator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bucket-wheel_excavator but I am not convinced that beeping would help if I would manage to miss THAT. And if I have Bagger 293 in my room then things already went really wrong and weird.
  - DarylZero 5y ago
    Those things can travel as fast as 0.37 mph so they can sneak up on you.
- shados 5y ago
  The smoke coming out of a coal powerplant exists for a good reason. Its still pollution. The fire alarm example is a bad one. They don't go off hundreds of times a day for hours on end. If they did, yes, we'd need a different solution. The construction project across my street has been going on for 6 years. 6 years of beep beep beep beep. There is technology and solutions that serve the same safety purpose but do it better. We can use directional beeper alarms, they can use different noise patterns and frequencies that are more easily blocked by windows and are easier to hear by people near by. They don't need to be as loud, too. There's no reason a backup alarm needs to be audible from 5 blocks in FRONT of the truck when its going BACKWARD. > Don't show up mid-construction and ask people to disable the safety alarms. What kind of strawman is this? Folks are asking for better safety code so that future construction can be handled safer with less disturbance. Not asking for a truck on a construction site right now turn off the alarm.

sailingparrot 5y ago

TFA is not talking about just removing backing alert sound, but replacing it by another one that fades much faster. Are you really in danger of getting crushed by a truck if said truck is 200m away? The article also argues that since the current beep travels very far, you hear it all the time on a construction site even if you are not nearby the backing equipment, and thus you start not paying attention to it anymore. A noise that would fade faster could be safer, because you would hear it less frequently and only when you are actually concerned, making it harder to ignore.

sandworm101 5y ago
Try listening to these beeps while wearing proper ear protection. While talking on a radio. Beside a running generator. While you are driving another piece of machinery yourself. Anything loud/penetrating enough to be heard by workers in the immediate area will also be heard by non-workers a great distance away. Policy at my workplace demands that all vehicle backing up, including personal cars, honk their horns twice before doing so. I'm sure the neighbors don't like the noise but after more than a couple accidents it was deemed necessary.
- mhb 5y ago
  > Policy at my workplace demands that all vehicle backing up So the beepers don't actually even work well enough?
  - sandworm101 5y ago
    Not all vehicles have backup beepers. Those are normally only on things bigger than a van. Personal cars/trucks don't have them.
- sailingparrot 5y ago
  > Anything loud/penetrating enough to be heard by workers in the immediate area will also be heard by non-workers a great distance away. Yes except not all noises are created equal. A white noise is very different from a single frequency noise and much less disturbing. After all many people even use white noise to block other type of aggravating noises. Here in Montréal all snow removal vehicles are equipped with a white noise backup alarm. It's snowing a lot in winter, so you have huge snow plows that might back up at any time in the middle of an intersection with pedestrians with earphones not paying attention, and I can say first hand that you cannot miss that noise when it's nearby. While at the same time when they are removing snow one block away from my place, you can still hear it but it doesn't prevent you from sleeping. This type of backing alarm has been approved as safe on construction sites by many places. In Canada at least its very commonly used. e.g: https://www.heavyequipmentguide.ca/article/24957/backup-alarm-being-replaced-more-frequently-with-white-noise-by-bc-businesses https://www.heavyequipmentguide.ca/article/24957/backup-alar...

MisterTea 5y ago

> We should not remove longstanding and effective safety features because their sound is displeasing to people far outside the zone of danger. Put up noise abatement fences. From the article: "Those who first mandated the beep thought it was good that it was annoying and impossible to ignore — and thus went for a distance. Because it "travels" like this, on any construction site (or near one) you are hearing them all the time. You become used to them and even start to ignore them, and that is why people still get crushed." The argument isn't about removing the sound but making it less intrusive and more effective at its job. Even in your example of police sirens there was a recent study posted on HN which concluded that loud emergency vehicle sirens causes panic in motorists leading them to make poor snap decisions resulting in accidents.

shados 5y ago
> you are hearing them all the time. You become used to them and even start to ignore them, and that is why people still get crushed I don't even work in construction, but I hear these so often every day, day after day, that if there's one coming up behind me, I'll likely get hit. The only way I can live my day to day is by having trained myself to ignore them. It's really useless as a safety measure. I know at least one person (elderly family friend who had perfect hearing) who got squashed by a large truck because she was in the same situation. Didn't bat an eye at the beeping right behind her until it was too late.

thrower123 5y ago

The idea of putting fiddly sensors on heavy equipment gives me the horrors. Better to stick with something rugged and stupid.

efficax 5y ago

The point is that it's not an effective safety feature. If you've ever spent time on a worksite you just hear the beeping constantly, and you start to ignore it

amanaplanacanal 5y ago

Someone driving too fast for the conditions, failing to notice and then striking a pedestrian, points to a different problem than not having the siren on.