Surviving sirens?!

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Well, it might not seem like a survival issue for most people, apparently. Not at all, in fact... although I won't speak for anyone on this forum, of course. I just cannot stand sirens.

Every single time they blare out for a couple of minutes my psyche seems to further move, ever so slightly more, into the territory where insanity is as plain as day. I'm convinced that the more sirens in a city the more people fall ill, and as such the more sirens are needed.

What makes me angry is that I've never driven a car in my life (and sirens are obviously directed at cars) - so every single time a siren blares it's not anything I can do about. But hey, who cares about pedestrians or those stupid enough to live in the center of a crowded city, right? People inside cars don't even hear it as much - so, yay, injustice (IMO) reigns.

(Oh, and before anyone points it out as they do IRL, I'm not saying we shouldn't have emergency services... "oh, why don't you think of the dying person!" (For all I know it's just a bored teen who randomly decided to get drunk in the middle of a crowded street.) But for all the technology that's been developed, the kind of stuff smartphones can do, you'd think they could have something silent that would only alert specifically the right people, cars on the same road etc. Oh, but people love noise, don't they? Heard someone say once that they wouldn't buy a car in the future if it's silent, because he'd miss the rumble. Sure, egotism much?)

...sorry for the diatribe.

Last edited by Mootoo on 13 Feb 2012, 4:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Earplugs. Also, digging my fingernails into my palms helps, because that's pain I can control unlike the sirens. (And stopping when I see that an ambulance is coming so that I'm not walking when it passes).

I carry earplugs with me everywhere now.

Well, if something just alerted cars, what about pedestrians and people on bicycles? What about people who had older cars without the special setup needed to hear the siren warning? What about cars where that thing is broken? What about the huge cost of converting everything to something like that so that a few people won't have to hear sirens?

I'm not downplaying your problem at all, but I'm saying that as they don't tend to bother the majority of people, it's probably not something that's going to happen not only because of the hassle of converting everything but also the cost to the EMS people, law enforcement, etc, and also to each and every person with a car.

As for the silent cars, I have no problem with something like a luxury car being silent or even a small foreign car with a 4cyl or something, but some cars just don't seem right without glasspacks. I personally love that sound.

I don't know what to say on this situation, as I also don't like vehicle sirens either (the electronic kind which scream through a horn speaker; not the big mechanical ones like on fire trucks). As for bigger sirens, such as those on fire trucks and on top of poles and buildings for storm warnings, I actually like the sound of those, and one of my special interests is collecting and restoring Cold War era air raid sirens. I'm holding one; a Federal Model SD10 in my avatar picture.

There is definitely an element of startlement when the siren blows and you aren't ready, and there is also a painful overstimulation of the hearing when one of those screechy screaming police sirens goes past closeby on the street. I found that to simply plug my ears works fine for those, if I'm standing on the street. After all, the vehicle with the siren is probably in a big hurry. Honestly I don't think the ones on police cars (and on ambulances in some cases), do a good job anyway of warning anyone out of their way. When I'm inside a car, I cannot hear those until they're very closeby; maybe not til it's too late to get out of the way. I think that kind of siren should be replaced with a lower, deeper tone siren (an old-fashioned mechanical one), which is plenty powerful to be heard as needed, but does not quite slice the skull in half when you're too close, as the electronic ones on police cars seem to do.

Charles

I don't mind so much when a vehicle with a noisy siren is already on when it's coming past me, because that way it won't make me jump. OK it does make my ears squeak a bit, but I can deal with that. It's SUDDEN loud sounds that I don't like because I hate the reaction I do, which is always involuntary. I look spasticated when I jump - my whole body jolts, which is very noticable, and after that I feel sick and shaky and actually quite ill. So it's not the noise I don't like exactly, it's more how my nerves react to it.

I just hate it when a vehicle with a loud siren is coming towards me with it's lights flashing but no siren, because that is when it might turn on at any moment. Other people say to me, ''at least you know it's coming so you will expect the sound'', but I always say, ''that doesn't matter - it still makes me jump horribly and I don't like it.''

I would love to wear earplugs, but unfortunately I live in a place where theres a lot of judgemental people, and wearing earplugs is ''against the conformity rules'' here, and if you are seen with them in, you are considered ''weird'' and get mocked by youngsters, and I can't be doing with all that. So they laugh when I jump, they laugh when I wear earplugs - like what the f**k am I meant to do?

NTs baffle me - often they complain about balloons popping and they say it makes them jump and they rather not be near balloons (well, that's what I've heard a few people say), but they don't mind when a siren suddenly blares on out of the blue or a dog suddenly barks without warning.

as has been said; driving your nails into your palms works; this forces away the mental pain from the sirine using physical pain from your palms; physical pain is a lot easier to endure then mental pain (usually)

I don't like sirens but a couple of months ago I moved and I'm on a busier street and hear a lot more sirens. I think I'm getting more used to them now and now I have front windows so I don't have to go outside to see what is going on if they stop nearby. Since I've lived here I had 4 cop cars and ambulances stop nearby almost in front of my house. I live near a bar and a college.

At least here I don't hear trains going by as much or planes flying overhead. My old place had train tracks across the street and when trains went by the whole house shook.

I'm actually unusually ok with 'wailing' sounds, like sirens, crying babies, etc.

My trouble is with more bassy sounds, or sounds that are really loud and sudden, like a gunshot, motorcycle starting, banging, etc.

Even if I did not like the 'wailing' sounds, I think I would still consider them necessary, in terms of sirens, because they alert cars and other people to make a clear path for the emergency vehicles.

I think it's a great idea to carry earplugs or noise cancelling headphones (I would opt for the later, because I hate ear buds and plugs...they hurt my ears and rarely stay put).

I grew up in a "bad area" and until I was about 18 years old, sirens, gunshots, motorcycles in groups etc were common sounds. I guess because I grew up around it, it was sort of normal to me, I never really noticed them. Also, airplanes flew over pretty loud going in to land or taking off. We also lived about a mile from train tracks and trains used to go by at night a lot. I liked the sounds of the trains, and I rarely noticed the plane noises.

Now that I've moved out to the country where sirens are rare (about twice a week at most), no airplanes go over where you can hear them, nobody shoots guns in town, and there are no working train tracks near here, I've noticed the absense of those. Before moving here we lived in the city and I was still used to the sirens. It was just background noise to me. Same with the planes and I enjoyed the trains. We didn't live in an area with too many gunshots though, although there were some over across the main road in the projects (that took great city planning huh, build a fairly expensive subdivision right across the main road from the projects?).

I guess it's all a matter of if it's something you hear so often that it becomes background noise and not noticible. Although I do really miss the trains.

My hearing range is considered odd even for an autistic person because i can any thing from the lowest tones to the highest tones modern technology can possibley make. As for the silent cars, I have no problem with something like a luxury car being silent or even a small foreign car with a 4cyl or something, but some cars just don't seem right without glasspacks. I personally love that sound. Also motercycles and muscle cars with loud exgsuast systems. As for bass and realy low tones i enjoy the way they sound and the feeling of pressure waves they make because it calms me down. Their is a certain range of tones that bug me.

Why does your post have part of my post word for word in it? The bolded part. Were you trying to quote and it didn't work?

I cannot stand either being in close proximity to EMT sirens or to wailing babies. The second is actually WORSE come to think of it, the siren is just loud & painful. A baby is too, but it adds an exponential degree of stress ( I think this is actually a normal instinct, just amplified as usual).

Sincerely,
Matthew

I thought you meant those seductive women of Greek mythology who can lure a chap to his death.

Same coping strategy will do for both though. Just mask your ears with plugs or hands. Sometimes you can see it coming - we had a regular fire alarm test at work, so I would set the alarm on my watch to bleep a minute before the test, and put in the ear plugs before the assault began.

Yes I was trying to quote and it didn't work.

Or some ambulances! Used to be an EMT on a couple amublances. One of the older ones had glasspacks. Used to be able to hear it coming from more than five miles out ... without the siren!

And for all of you that posted you can't stand sirens, my apologies. It's true that we didn't sound the sirens for pedestrians. I would be mindful of even "thoughtless individuals" that stepped off the curb in front of us, so that I wouldn't deafen them. But they did get a rather nasty look from me. But yes, pedestrians can hear the sirens all too well, where as cars are getting more airtight and soundproof, and can't hear them as well. Not sure what to do about that.