Well, that’s just our opinion. Laurie L. Dove, howstuffworks.com, gives a more detailed answer. Dove starts by noting that “unlike lawn mowers, leaf blowers are probably the most villainized devices in the lawn care universe,” because they are now used year-round and for many–most?–the noise level they create is unacceptable. As a result, when leaf blowers first became common in the U.S., Dove says two California communities, Carmel-by-the-Sea and Beverly Hills, banned leaf blowers back in the 1970s. And they have been followed since then by hundreds of communities nationwide that have banned or limited their use.
Why are leaf blowers so hateful? Dove asks and answers:
What is it about leaf blowers that people hate? Is it the decibels? The constancy? Do leaf blowers pose real dangers to the health of users or others who happen to be within earshot? Increasingly, the answer appears to be “yes” —to all of the above.
Restaurateurs say that a quiet restaurant is a dead or dying one. They want their places to be lively. But there’s a difference between a lively restaurant with spirited conversations going on among the diners, and one that is deafeningly loud, making it impossible to converse with one’s dining companions.
Yesterday, while looking for another piece of information in the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) classic 1974 “Noise Levels Report” Information on Levels of Environmental Noise Requisite to Protect Public Health and Welfare with an Adequate Margin of Safety (EPA, 1974). I came across Table D-10, which I had missed on an earlier reading.
EPA Recommended Acceptable Noise Levels for Restaurants (Click to enlarge)
It turns out that the EPA recommends that restaurants be very quiet, only about 50-60 decibels. These days, that’s almost “library quiet”. In fact, some months ago I measured the sound level to be approximately 45 dBA in the main circulation room of my local library!
So concern about appropriate restaurant noise levels is not a new concern. It’s decades old.
Some have suggested that diners should walk out of noisy restaurants, or boycott them. But in many cities, if we did that, we would never eat in a restaurant. There just aren’t any quiet ones. And as long as the restaurants are full, there is no incentive for them to become quieter.
I don’t know about the UK, but in the U.S., lawsuits under disability rights laws may be the only way restaurants will become quieter.
Dr. Daniel Fink is a leading noise activist based in the Los Angeles area. He serves on the board of the American Tinnitus Association, is the interim chair of Quiet Communities’s Health Advisory Council, and is the founding chair of The Quiet Coalition, an organization of science, health, and legal professionals concerned about the impacts of noise on health, environment, learning, productivity, and quality of life in America.
Nine sources of noise that will damage your house’s value. Emmie Martin, Business Insider, writes about a recent study by Realtor.com that “calculated the price difference between homes within a certain radius of nine major noise factors — including airports, highways, and emergency rooms — and the median price of homes in the rest of that ZIP code.” Click the link to see how noise effects house prices. There isn’t much prose, but the slider makes it clear that noise matters when you are buying or selling your home.
In light of the recent study linking traffic noise to an increased risk of acquiring dementia, this article is a must read: How To Reduce Noise Pollution At Home.
Of course, one would hope that governments would think about how best to limit noise after reading that frightening study. The medical costs alone should be enough to motivate even the most dispassionate bean counter. But until they do, we really must take matters into our own hands and try to make our homes as peaceful and noise free as possible.
But nearby sous chef saves the day by engaging crowd in playful revenge prank. That the car owner found his or her car in one piece and minus deliberate scratches or slashed tires shows the compassion and self-control most people are able to exercise. Kudos to the chef for coming up with a clever way for people to vent. We can only hope that the car owner was publicly shamed as he or she came to retrieve their automobile.
Joseph Serna, L.A. Times, reports that “praise poured onto El Segundo Police Department’s Facebook page from ecstatic residents” this past Sunday, November 13th. Why? Because “'[t]hey found the air horn guy!!’ wrote Jenn Birch.” Yes, John W. Nuggent, pictured above, outfitted his “little blue four-door, 2006 Chevrolet Aveo” with “an air tank with hoses connected to a device near the car’s gas pedal.” When the officer tried the car’s horn, he heard what sounded like the horn of “a big truck or train.” Nuggent then admitted that he was the guy who had been driving down the middle of the street for six weeks, waking up the residents with his horn, all to annoy one specific resident with whom he had had a dispute.
Nuggent was arrested on suspicion of disturbing the peace. We suspect the prosecutor should get an easy conviction.
Owl-inspired wing design reduces wind turbine noise by 10 decibels. Some people living near wind farms have complained about health problems caused by the turbine noise. While the debate continues as to whether the noise adversely affects human health, relief may be on its way. Science Daily reports that a team of researchers studying the acoustics of owl flight have been working on pinpointing the mechanisms used by many species of owl that allows them “to hunt in effective silence by suppressing their noise at sound frequencies above 1.6 kilohertz (kHz) — over the range that can be heard by humans.” The researchers wanted to use those mechanisms “to improve human-made aerodynamic design — of wind turbines, aircraft, naval ships and, even, automobiles” And apparently they have succeeded in using owl feathers “as a model to inspire the design of a 3-D printed, wing attachment that reduces wind turbine noise by a remarkable 10 decibels — without impacting aerodynamics.”
When Music Is Violence. Alex Ross, writing for The New Yorker, reports on the use of extremely loud noise in psychological-operations and warfare. The American public was introduced to this tactic in December, 1989, when the military employed it in Panama, blasting “non-stop music [to] aggravate [Manuel] Noriega into surrendering” after he was expelled from power and took refuge in the Papal Nunciatura in Panama City. Although the “media delighted in the spectacle”, both “President George H. W. Bush and General Colin Powell, then the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, took a dim view of it.” Despite a lack of enthusiasm for weaponized noise at the top of command, the use of loud music as a weapon has increased. “[D]uring the occupation of Iraq the C.I.A. added music to the torture regime known as “enhanced interrogation,” and the tactic has also been used in Guantánamo.
Ross looks at the intersection of music and violence, noting that when “music is applied to warlike ends, we tend to believe that it has been turned against its innocent nature.” He states, “[s]ound is all the more potent because it is inescapable,” and notes how technological development has led to long-range acoustic devices that “send out shrill, pulsating tones of up to a hundred and forty-nine decibels—enough to cause permanent hearing damage.” The discussion turns darker as Ross examines the “music sadism” pioneered by the Nazis, and draws the thread to Abu Ghraib, Bagram, Mosul, and Guantánamo, where “the loud-music tactic displays a chilling degree of casual sadism: the choice of songs seems designed to amuse the captors as much as to nauseate the captives.” And there is more.
Do click the link above. The article is thought provoking, disturbing, and absolutely worth reading.
Thanks to Daniel Fink, M.D. for the link. Dr. Fink is a leading noise activist based in the Los Angeles area. He serves on the board of the American Tinnitus Association, is the interim chair of Quiet Communities’s Health Advisory Council, and is the founding chair of The Quiet Coalition, an organization of science, health, and legal professionals concerned about the impacts of noise on health, environment, learning, productivity, and quality of life in America.
