The problem here is that the venn diagram of "people who care enough about safety to have an opinions" and "people who's minds won't implode when faced with a t

The problem here is that the venn diagram of "people who care enough about safety to have an opinions" and "people who's minds won't implode when faced with a tradeoff that cannot be easily side stepped by inputting money" and "people who are ok with subjective solutions that are not one size fits all" are very nearly three separate circles. The obvious answer here is to use one type of beeper in quiet environments (e.g. warehouse forklift) and one beeper for loud environment (scrapyard forklift). Of course that opens the door to subjective decisions (the inspector may have to judge whether a beeper is appropriate) and gaming the system (a workplace could run loud machinery at reduced speed) and the vast majority of the people trying to handle workplace safety are coming at it from a perspective where that is a non-starter. You see this any time the subject of "required" PPE and the health and safety implications of it when worn in extreme and non-typical workplaces. People get tied in all sorts of ideological knots when it becomes clear they can't just sling one size fits all solutions at problems.