What can we do in STL to cut the noise?
Farting motorcycles and cars, LOL.



Noise Awareness - Impact of noise on a happy, healthy childhood

https://noiseawareness.org/info-center/noise-children/

The Guardian - Tree-mendous news: noisy gas-powered leaf blowers banned in Washington DC

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... hington-dc

Autoweek - California Targets Loud Exhaust with Sound-Activated Camera Enforcement

https://www.autoweek.com/news/technolog ... forcement/

The trucks Jake Braking is our biggest frustration. It’s illegal on HW farty but we’re told it’s impossible to police.

Can we please ban leaf blowers already?

^^ Yuck. Why?
^ Please. The gas-powered two-stroke ones are terrible for both noise and air pollution. Electric ones are much quieter.

^ My VW came from the factory with a 'soundaktor' that basically vibrates the firewall at a frequency to where it makes a turbo 4 feel more like a 6.  I unplugged it right after I bought it lol.

For the love of god how is this not illegal

^It's really only audible to the people inside the car. Not sure on what grounds you would outlaw it. It's basically just a marketing gimmick. Not particularly a safety or emissions issue. Not even a noise pollution issue. (Quite the reverse. You could make people that want loud cars happier while actually making the cars quieter for everyone else.) Wendover had a video on it a week or two ago. I'm quite happy without it on my own car, but . . . when I'm not driving my Miata I'm quite happily driving my wife's Prius. I'm clearly not the target market here.

symphonicpoet wrote: ↑

May 19, 2022

^It's really only audible to the people inside the car. Not sure on what grounds you would outlaw it. It's basically just a marketing gimmick. Not particularly a safety or emissions issue. Not even a noise pollution issue. (Quite the reverse. You could make people that want loud cars happier while actually making the cars quieter for everyone else.) Wendover had a video on it a week or two ago. I'm quite happy without it on my own car, but . . . when I'm not driving my Miata I'm quite happily driving my wife's Prius. I'm clearly not the target market here.

Ah. I missed that it was only internal. Can't wait for those french noise cameras to become more popular. Car noise made my life on Wash Ave hell for two years And before anyone says "if you don't like noise then don't move to Wash Ave" 1) I lived there for 2 years before that but thankfully had a shotgun unit with a bedroom away from the windows. 2) A lot of people don't know that before moving there. Why waste hundreds of apartments facing that street to allow a small group of men to show off their hobbies to people that hate them.

Oh, I've slowly come to understand the benefits of automated enforcement generally, and I expect it would work just as well for noise pollution as bus gates. Bring the French cameras! (And I could easily see myself getting into the Washington Avenue problem without completely thinking about it, and people there should have the same right to sleep as everyone else. It's not like you moved in above a 3am bar.)

aprice wrote: ↑

May 19, 2022

symphonicpoet wrote: ↑

May 19, 2022

^It's really only audible to the people inside the car. Not sure on what grounds you would outlaw it. It's basically just a marketing gimmick. Not particularly a safety or emissions issue. Not even a noise pollution issue. (Quite the reverse. You could make people that want loud cars happier while actually making the cars quieter for everyone else.) Wendover had a video on it a week or two ago. I'm quite happy without it on my own car, but . . . when I'm not driving my Miata I'm quite happily driving my wife's Prius. I'm clearly not the target market here.

Ah. I missed that it was only internal. Can't wait for those french noise cameras to become more popular. Car noise made my life on Wash Ave hell for two years And before anyone says "if you don't like noise then don't move to Wash Ave" 1) I lived there for 2 years before that but thankfully had a shotgun unit with a bedroom away from the windows. 2) A lot of people don't know that before moving there. Why waste hundreds of apartments facing that street to allow a small group of men to show off their hobbies to people that hate them.

Yeah this is done because most modern cars use smaller engines with turbos - and while turbos are great for making additional power they do tend to muffle exhaust sound.  Auto enthusiasts *love* the wail of an engine at high revs... And generally the more cylinders and the more volume the better. A turbo i-4 or even V-6 generally speaking doesn't doesn't sound as good, especially the way most manufacturers tune their engines for everyday drivability as opposed to at-the-limit fun noises. symponicpoet should be able to appreciate this point - for folks who like fast cars, a good sounding engine is literally music to their ears.  

But a loud exhaust is the musical equivalent to the guy walking around playing loud music without headphones - he loves it, everybody else hates it.  The pumped-in stuff is a good compromise - the enthusiast gets his music, and the neighbors get a quieter exhaust.

Interestingly electric vehicles have the opposite problem - they are so quiet that people can't hear them coming, which has become perceived as a pedestrian hazard.  The solution: Many of cars actually do have (in at least some cases government-mandated) external-facing speakers pumping out noise so that people can hear them coming. It's sold as a safety feature, and it's still a lot quieter than a sports car's exhaust.

-RBB

Gov.uk - 'Noise camera' trials to detect rowdy drivers coming to Bradford, Bristol, Great Yarmouth and Birmingham

New technology will identify antisocial drivers and reduce noise pollution.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/nois ... birmingham

^They do like their automated enforcement over there. Caused me to jump on board with the idea. I think our roads could do with a solid dose of Britishness, really. (Though I'm happy to keep the right hand driving.)

CNN - You were right — traffic noise is indeed pushing up your blood pressure

https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/22/health/r ... index.html

quincunx, i appreciate these links!

Streets.mn - Street Illegal: A Hot Take on Hot Cars

https://streets.mn/2024/12/03/street-il ... -hot-cars/

Medium - Got A Car Alarm? Get Rid Of It

https://clivethompson.medium.com/got-a- ... 4a72dc235f

We could push our city council to ban really loud exhausts or set up noise-activated cameras like they do in California. Also, it’d be great to limit noisy leaf blowers – Washington DC just banned theirs. We could even map the loudest spots and ask for more police patrols focused on noise. Another simple move is getting community groups to talk to riders and drivers to dial it down a notch.

God, I hate gas powered leaf blowers (for many reasons). The electrics have gotten good enough now that the gas ones should be banned.

I would be over the moon if the City banned gas-powered leaf blowers. So loud, completely unnecessary (I didn't even know about electrics, they could also just rake/sweep), and they're astonishingly inefficient. I forget the exact stats but comparing how much gas they use vs.  a car was eye popping. And I can't imagine that the hearing ability of workers who have to use them isn't affected over time. 

99% Invisible podcast episode exploring both sides of the leaf blower wars.

Fewer gas powered lawn equipment would be wonderful. I was enjoying the back patio at a friend's house yesterday and the incessant noise in the neighborhood was deafening