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It is amazing how quiet modern cars are on the inside compared to the outside. We could have made a massive difference to this by requiring car companies to match the in-car noise level to the volume of noise they emitted outside the cabin. I bet then they would have put some of the effort that they put into reducing the noise for their customers into reducing the noise for everyone else.

Thankfully electric vehicles should help with this to some extent too.

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A few years ago, there were people complaining about how quiet EVs were. I kept reading stories about how people were complaining that silent cars were creepy, so noise was added.

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This is something you don't even realize until you live somewhere that isn't suburban and it needs to be talked about a lot more as a public health problem.

Great Read!

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Thanks Alberto. There's of course the noise pollution that comes from places like NYC, which is why they're talking about installing "sound cameras" to fine people for excessive noise. But it's not as though typical sprawl is the opposite (i.e. quiet) of Manhattan.

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One secondary benefit of covid lockdowns (in New Zealand) is that you got to realise how noisy traffic was and what sounds of nature were being drowned out by traffic noise.

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