Noise pollution

Taras Grescoe @grescoe | 10:28 AM · Aug 25, 2022:
Author of Straphanger and ↑ | Words @nytimes guardian natgeo newyorker wsj | Next book: @lostsupper ...

"A jacked-up motorcycle in the middle of the night can easily wake up 10,000 people."
More cities in #France install "Méduse" anti-noise radars, which have 4 microphones, camera to automatically ticket vehicles that exceed a certain number of decibels

https://ouest-france.fr/pays-de-la-loire/la-baule-44500/la-baule-un-radar-antibr...

Photo of anti-noise radars, camera ( https://twitter.com/grescoe/status/1562809044557246464/photo/1 )

When the vehicles go by in the night with their basses booming and their engines revving in front of our house in obvious hostility, I think about all the wild animals within hearing range. Owls live in this area. Do you know how sensitive their hearing is? And just as bad, how many diurnal creatures are woken by the noises? After dealing with the extreme weather in the day, the sleep disruptions must be especially bad for their health (as it is for ours).

I understand that the people who are deliberately being loud likely hate us and wildlife around us, but that only makes the situation harder to deal with. Until these people pull their stunts by the mayor's or police chief's house, no one will do anything about it here.

Five years ago we moved to the bush from the city. Previously we lived in a Nairobi residential suburb where there were kiosks outside our house, originally just selling vegetables and groceries but eventually graduating to cafes providing food, alcohol and drugs. It became a stage for taxis and buses, with the loud booming music and revving engines. Car alarms were going off in the middle of the night as they cleaned the taxis. There were noisy drunken arguments. People urinated on our fence. It became untenable.

Now the only noise we hear at night is the wind, the occasional howling of hyenas, and the barking of our dogs when a wild animal passes by. Bliss!

When it comes to noise, the people living on Staten Island, NY have a beef with NJ.

https://www.audacy.com/1010wins/news/local/nj-boom-parties-are-driving-staten-is...