Committee on the Environment

We know that we like it big and we like it fast. Do we also like it noisy?

Big & Noisy: Press here and you get those sounds right into your nursery!

Consider this: Background music in bars, restaurants, elevators, stores indoor malls and outdoor shopping centers seems to indicate a fear of quietness. TVs monitors blasting in airport lounges and hotel lobbies and breakfast rooms. Cars that honk and beep every time someone touches the remote. Trucks and construction equipment that beep when they back up. Trash trucks and school buses that are so noisy that they shake everybody out of bed as soon as they enter one end of the neighborhood. Buses that talk when the door opens, traffic signals that beep and talk so the blind can't hear the cars anymore, fire trucks with horns so powerful they can bust your ear drums. Baby toys that make incessant noise, bars in which patrons yell so loudly at each other that each conversation leaves your vocal chords sore. Neighbors that trot out any number of machines that exceed any noise limits in effect for commercial construction equipment from leaf blowers to chainsaws, from power washers to weed whackers. thing is, there are hardly any laws that curb the inferno except at night-time.