I hate how fucking loud cars are, even when they’re being as quiet as they possibly can be. Just the sound of them passing through space and their tires on the road is so fucking loud.

I’m currently sitting in my hammock, at the back of my apartment complex, probably 300yd from the road, behind three 2-story buildings. The road noise is constant and loud. No honking or anything, just tires on pavement at 50mph.

If the personal automobile had never been invented the apartment I live in would be half as far from my work as it currently is and my road would have a lovely quiet street-car running along it instead of stupidly loud rubber tired cars.

I’d be able to walk to work in 20-30 minutes or bike/trolley there in less. And what would I lose? A lot of noise pollution and a machine I have to pay a couple hundred dollars a month to maintain.

  • toxnoxroxbox [he/him]
    ·
    1 year ago

    Most people don't realize that your car is for your bosses benefit, but you have to pay for it. It's a way for workers to subsidize private capital.

  • UlyssesT [he/him]
    ·
    1 year ago

    even when they’re being as quiet as they possibly can be

    That'd be nice to deal with sometimes, but especially after midnight, the goal of the carbrained seems to be to make as much noise as possible around where I live.

    • berrytopylus [she/her,they/them]
      ·
      1 year ago

      Oh yeah just the random cars driving by that you can hear from absurd distances away that will never be enforced against by the police despite clearly being against any noise regulation is absurdity and a nice combination of multiple shitty things there are once.

    • ClimateChangeAnxiety [he/him, they/them]
      hexagon
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      Thankfully near me it’s very rare to have car noise outside of rubber on road and the one guy whose Nissan Altima is seemingly super broken and makes a horrible squeaking noise that fills my whole apartment around once a day.

      I genuinely don’t blame him and feel bad for him, it’s definitely a “I know I just can’t afford to fix whatever is horribly wrong” noise and not a “Loud car = Big penis” noise, but it sure is annoying.

      • UlyssesT [he/him]
        ·
        1 year ago

        Where I am, after midnight, there's douchebags that need to peel out and do figure-8s in the street when it's otherwise empty enough and they also like to blast enough bass to rattle windows while parked for an hour at a time. :doomer:

      • FloridaBoi [he/him]
        ·
        1 year ago

        The shrieking noise is a belt slipping. Idk which belt but if it’s the timing belt that thing will just die one day

      • fart [he/him]
        ·
        1 year ago

        so bad and they're always lame ass cars like golf r's and 3 series beemers with automatics. If im gonna hear that i wanna see a rally spec Evo or something.

    • usernamesaredifficul [he/him]
      ·
      1 year ago

      it's not at all unheard of for assholes to modify their cars to be loader to let everyone around know they're insecure about their masculinity and are a jackass to compensate

      • StewartCopelandsDad [he/him]
        ·
        1 year ago

        but bro this straight pipe exhaust gives me +5 horsepower, I need it for my track day twice a year

  • LaBellaLotta [any]
    ·
    1 year ago

    The sound pollution is truly one of the worst parts. It’s why most sidewalks are basically unusable. You can feel the adrenaline spike when a car zooms past on the sidewalk.

    • UlyssesT [he/him]
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      The sound pollution is truly one of the worst parts. It’s why most sidewalks are basically unusable. You can feel the adrenaline spike when a car zooms past on the sidewalk.

      Judging by the shouting, screaming, and sometimes cup throwing that happens between carbrains and pedestrians (or especially bicyclists) in my area, the adrenaline spike is an intentional and desired result. :frothingfash:

  • FourteenEyes [he/him]
    ·
    1 year ago

    Listening to the drone of rubber on the freeway rn as I walk back from lunch thru the parking lot at work

    Cars have completely fucking ruined urban spaces in this country

    • FloridaBoi [he/him]
      ·
      1 year ago

      I never knew how loud everything was until the pandemic and the two highways near me were empty and the nearby airport was closed. It was like a different planet

  • OgdenTO [he/him]
    ·
    1 year ago

    You know what they say, cities aren't loud, cars are

  • dung_Eater [none/use name]
    ·
    1 year ago

    when visiting suburbs, i'm always surprised by how easy it is to hear traffic from highways that aren't even visible

  • Des [she/her, they/them]
    ·
    1 year ago

    they recently cut down the only woods providing a barrier between where i live and the highway because some corrupt capitalist fucker bought the narrow strip of woods to put some useless bullshit on it. headlights now blast right through my door. and I hear EVERY FUCKING CAR. the road curves right where my house is so I get the delightful experience of a full Doppler effect.

    i'm ordering some illegal fast growing bamboo this spring.

  • iridaniotter [she/her, they/them]
    ·
    1 year ago

    Oh here is something related I want to share my frustration about - anti-train NIMBYs living in the suburbs that complain about the noise of HSR. So a train wooshing by a couple times an hour (let's be real - it won't be more frequent than that in America!) Yet they don't bat an eye (or cover an ear?) at the constant loudness of a local highway! These people don't believe anything!!!!!!!!! :agony:

    • AntiOutsideAktion [he/him]
      ·
      1 year ago

      That's a fish not knowing it's wet. Car traffic is so ever present it turns into white noise.

    • GalaxyBrain [they/them]
      ·
      1 year ago

      I've got a stroad on one side and a train track running through my backyard. I love the train track. I can sit on my balcony and look at trains and they make a cool noise for a bit andnits done for a while.

  • American_Communist22 [she/her,comrade/them]
    ·
    1 year ago

    I have dudes with teslas, jeeps, and motorcycles blasting through the neighborhood all the time

    :doomer: but there aren't any more native birds or the like anyway cause they're all extinct or endangered, so the tire on asphalt is basically the birds singing in the morn over here.

    • Phish [he/him, any]
      ·
      1 year ago

      I live on a pretty busy street. Had to get a white noise machine to drown out the traffic. It works really well but it kinda sucks that it's necessary.

  • Simferopol [none/use name]
    ·
    1 year ago

    every car should have a 60kmph speed limit tbh. itll save so many lives and reduce pollution

  • Mardoniush [she/her]
    ·
    1 year ago

    Super love being 5+km from the nearest road, surrounded by trees, not a piece of human infrastructure in sight, and hearing a road train rumble up through the valley.

  • Grandpa_garbagio [he/him]
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    Currently living in what amounts to a cabin on the outskirts of a very small town, and when i moved here there was this eerieness i couldn't quite pinpoint until one night it dawned on me that it was the LACK of car noise. I can hear everything in the woods around me. I'd grown so accustomed to cars that I just keep some sort of white noise/podcast/rain sounds going at night now

  • iridaniotter [she/her, they/them]
    ·
    1 year ago

    Yes we need to return to form and stop having closed cars. Well, not really, but the incredible noise canceling has got to go. It is detrimental to everyone outside of the car that motorists don't hear their own noise pollution coming from high speed tires, engines, and honking.

    • crime [she/her, any]
      ·
      1 year ago

      Why not make cars more uncomfortable without adding more replacement infrastructure?

      • iridaniotter [she/her, they/them]
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        My actual priorities are:

        Public transportation > complete streets (bike lanes, reducing lanes, traffic calming) > technical changes to cars (making sure motorists are aware of their own noise, speed governors)

        • crime [she/her, any]
          ·
          1 year ago

          Fair enough — I'm still not sold on the idea that making cars louder would actually help much, but I do know it would be hell for a lot of people like me (autistic, hyperacusis)

  • came_apart_at_Kmart [he/him, comrade/them]
    ·
    1 year ago

    it's kind of incredible how far vehicle noise carries. when i worked out doors in remote places, you could hear a single vehicle or big truck jake breaking and if the wind was right it would carry for miles. like enough for someone quietly working to note it. after living and working in places like that for a few weeks, the depth of hearing is insane. when you can open a window and hear the wind move lazily through grasses and trees a hundred yards away, you are dialed in to your surroundings.

    living in a typical city with all the cars, it's like living in a fog of perennially shifting white noise generators. i'm lucky if i can hear something in the next room.