A few weeks ago I was traveling up Interstate Fifty-five in Missouri and pulled into a small travel center for a cup of coffee. It was a lazy, muggy day and it seemed as if the world was moving at about three quarters speed.
I was standing outside the building with my coffee and chatting with a young couple who’d been blessed with a singularly beautiful baby girl. The child was in a jovial mood, happily gurgling and pulling on my mustache with reckless abandon.
At the gas pumps, an elderly man was filling his tank, and a slow procession of customers was filing in and out of the convenience store. In other words, just another quiet day in Middle America.
I heard the rumble as they exited the freeway. Around the bend they came, driving way too fast and making more racket than a dozen semis. “They” were three bikers on their Harleys, complete with straight pipes, black leather, and shaggy beards flopping in the breeze. They couldn’t be content to just idle their engines as they came under the canopy over the gas islands. They continued revving their un-muffled engines until they’d all found vacant pumps. No purpose was served by their incessant winding of their engines. It was noise for the sake of the noise itself, and under the relatively close confines of the canopy, the sheer loudness left everyone’s ears ringing.
By the time the rumbling, roaring and backfiring was over, the aforementioned little girl was crying out of sheer terror, the elderly man was covering his ears with his hands, and I had ducked back inside to escape the painful assault on my senses. The bikers, for their part, seemed unconcerned that they’d shattered the peace of the day. They met the disapproving stares of others with utter indifference. I found their lack of consideration beyond offensive.
I don’t expect every moment of every day to be quiet and peaceful. I will however take every peaceful moment I can get and I don’t appreciate it when that peace is wrecked by some clod who deems it necessary to make as much noise as is humanly possible. Shouldn’t we as a civilized culture have moved beyond such nonsense by now?
Noise pollution is everywhere, and a lot of it is unavoidable. Busy streets, freeways, airports, racetracks and industrial areas are expected to be noisy. But think how much quieter our world would be with a few more mufflers. With the amount of traffic on the roads today, loud pipes should be banned from any street-legal vehicle. I expect straight pipes on race cars because mufflers consume horsepower. But “regular” cars and trucks should be required to maintain the lowest possible noise level attainable without compromising performance.
Many cities have adopted more stringent noise ordinances in recent years. A trip up US 69 in Oklahoma will reveal signs in just about every town banning the use of “Engine Brakes” on trucks within the city limits. Given the fact that a Harley Davidson motorcycle sans mufflers is just as loud, one has to wonder why similar laws haven’t been passed for them.
Another frequent offender is the low-rider Honda Accord with its stereo blasting out some unintelligible Hip Hop tune. You know the type… you literally feel the bass before you see the vehicle. I can remember sitting at a traffic light in Dallas one morning when just such a car rolled up on my left. The bass emanating from that car was so powerful that my windows began to hum. Is this really necessary? And what sort of damage was this so-called music doing to the ears of whoever was in that car?
And trains? Geez! Mister Engineer, is it really necessary to blast that mega-horn at 3:00AM whilst I’m trying to sleep? Yes, I know there are laws requiring that the trains honk their gigantic horns at crossings. But in the twenty-first century you’d think we could find a better way. And Heaven forbid that any more truckers install train horns on their rigs. You can always tell when a trucker gets a new train horn - he honks it constantly for about a week. It’s embarrassing.
Continued exposure to excessive noise is not only detrimental to our hearing, but to other facets of our overall health. Stress levels can climb, leading to nervous disorders, hypertension and other maladies. Tempers can grow short and lead to a host of other problems none of us need.
The bottom line: Legislators need to take steps to turn down the volume on our society. There are situations in which noise pollution is unavoidable. But we can require quiet mufflers on motor vehicles. We can develop more efficient (and quieter) warning systems for railroad crossings so trains needn’t rattle every window in town when they pass through. City managers can be more intelligent in developing zoning laws to isolate noisy industrial areas from residential neighborhoods.
We all need a little peace and quiet. But it’s getting harder and harder to find.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: By the way - if you’re wondering as to what an engine brake (aka “compression brake”) is, there’s a couple of links below to describe how they work and why they’re a needed safety device for large trucks. I use one, but then again, my truck also has a muffler. I don’t need the racket.
Related Reading:
Compression Brake Laws and Restrictions
http://www.jakebrake.com/about-us/noise-concerns.php
How a Compression Brake Works
http://www.jakebrake.com/technology/engine.php
Wikipedia Article on Noise Pollution and How It Affects Our Health
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noise_pollution
American Indians confront bikers
http://www.theconservativevoice.com/ap/article.html?mi=D8J9TGFG0&apc=9001
Alan Burkhart is a freelance political writer, cross-country trucker, and proud citizen of the reddest of the Red States - Mississippi. You can reach him via e-mail at: alan@alanburkhart.com or by visiting his website: www.alanburkhart.com.
