Who will listen about the sirens and road sweepers?

Published: 2 December, 2010

• WOULDN’T life be easier on the ears without the constant background wail of sirens?  

I know our emergency services need a vehicle and pedestrian warning system, time is very much of the essence, but at what cost?

Do sirens have to produce such an incredibly loud sound to be effective?

A while ago the Noise Abatement Society placed a massive LED display at the busy junction of Old Street and Shoreditch, which was attached to a sound pressure level meter – activated by the noise from passing traffic. 

I would have much preferred the LED display and meter to be on heavily congested Euston Road.

I spent a short while watching the readings capturing the moment on my mobile. 

From registering at around 56dbs for ambient traffic noise and a blip to 68dbs for car horn, it then raced to 92dbs as the Metropolitan Police nudged their way through stationary traffic. 

The loudest was actually a road sweeper at a deafening 97dbs.

Apart from most ambulances the vast majority of traditional sirens are not directional therefore defeating the warning of where the vehicle is approaching from; potentially causing panic and confusion along with noise nuisance. 

Is there another way?

The Noise Abatement Society seem to think so. 

They’re campaigning for emergency sirens to use broadband sound technology – which uses directional white sound – but so far the regulatory bodies are far from convinced. This available technology, which is directional and utilises white sound, has already been very successful with reversing alarms on large vehicles in the society’s “Quietening the Streets” campaign. 

Having said the decision-makers are willing to look at other technologies as they are presented, we are left in the meantime with the London equivalent of tinnitus.

SIMON LAMROCK
Bloomsbury, WC1