Vehicle Motion Alarms: Necessity, Noise Pollution, or Both?

摘要

Noise pollution chips away at the public health, interfering with our immune systems, learning, and sleep, boosting stress hormones, and contributing to cardiovascular maladies, even at levels too low to cause hearing damage.1 If annoyance level is any indication, backup beepers may be one of the most harmful noises.In a 2010 report titled Technology for a Quieter America, the National Academy of Engineering cited backup beepers as one of the six top noise sources people associated with behavioral and emotional consequences.2 And although no studies to date have assessed the public health impact of backup beepers, the unpredictability and lack of control over when the sounds are heard are characteristics that normally raise noise’s impact on public health, says Arline Bronzaft, chair of the Noise Committee of the Mayor’s Grow NYC (formerly Council on the Environment).