Living next to a construction site for over a year (beep beep beep beep)

weilke said:
I used to live in a ground-floor apartment in NYC, next door to a chinese restaurant. Each day, 4am there would be 'beep beep beep' of the garbage truck backing onto the sidewalk to collect the buffet the restaurant had left out for the rats that night.

Now I live out in the boonies and the only noise at night is the owl on a neighboring parcel. There are some choices we can make in life.
Click to expand...

It's not w matter of choices. We moved here, and then at some point they decided to renovate the school next to us. Not everyone can move the the country and if we all did, you would be soon hearing the garbage trucks again.

And there seems to be a win win solution, that has been going on for ten years in an enlightened city.
I seriously doubt you loved hearing that, but it was once a day only....for a short period. The current system is way past due for overhauling. We could do better, and ought to.
 
Jeff Oslick said:
The other option is to have dedicated spotter for each rig, and that just isn't practical most of the time.
Click to expand...

If this were true, ATC would need one spotter per aircraft.

What's actually needed is a handful of spotters in a high position with a good view and a rock solid Comm system or remote kill switch board. You get bucket truck tower duty today...

But little beepers are cheaper and construction sites are all about cheap, fast, and as little safety effort as possible under the law.

The rest of the trucking industry for the most part doesn't have beepers and teaches people backing with blind spots to get out and look. Construction just wants to go faster than such sane behavior allows.

And it's not like cameras are expensive these days. Might have to get out and clean off the lens once an hour.
 
I am trying to understand what your point is. It's a small enough country that you might even be able to effect that kind of change at the local level if you put your mind to it. Otoh nobody on this site has a vote on the Oslo city council.
 
 
Color me VERY skeptical about the white noise idea.

One of the features of the beeper is that you can very easily tell when there are multiple vehicles backing up. Continuous noise doesn't do that. For instance, try to tell whether there are one or two airplanes taxiing on your field by sound. It's a fairly common taxi accident scenario where one airplane is noticed and a second isn't. Operating around gliders, I've definitely gotten stuck behind an oblivious pedestrian on the taxiway with eyeballs clearly glued to another airplane ahead. You can easily tell one backhoe from two.
 
I feel for ya LongRoadBob. Years ago I have had the pleasure of being driven to almost shear madness by those constant beeping vehicles. A neighbor went out one night and destroyed all the beepers. Someone took the hint and did not replace those pesky beepers.

I was thinking about getting a lunch break horn and sounding it off every hour to see what happened....

I spent one summer living next to a lake. A great place to live until 4am when all the seaplanes started leaving.....
 
I can hear the whistles on the trains delivering coal to the power plants at night. If I listen carefully, I can hear the coal being dumped. Of course, when my neighbor taxis his Seabee in front of my house it's a lot louder than those things (and it's compounded when my parrot starts making airplane noises in response).
 
weilke said:
I used to live in a ground-floor apartment in NYC, next door to a chinese restaurant. Each day, 4am there would be 'beep beep beep' of the garbage truck backing onto the sidewalk to collect the buffet the restaurant had left out for the rats that night.

Now I live out in the boonies and the only noise at night is the owl on a neighboring parcel. There are some choices we can make in life.
Click to expand...

Once I spent the night in Florence, Italy - in one of those multistory masonry buildings Italy is known for (facing an alley). They collected the garbage at about
2 AM - and those a-holes made as much noise as possible with the metal cans they used in those days. There were no beepers, though.
I'm glad it was for only one night.

Edit: Where I live they collect garbage, recycles, and greenwaste - each in its own can, thus three different trucks. Some customers (like my neighbors) pay extra for "off street" collection. So they roll those wheeled plastic cans out to the truck and back on the shared driveway. They "oilcan" horribly - especially when empty. The trucks make a lot of noise as well. Talk about noise pollution... At least they only collect once per week - and during the day (I am usually gone to work by then - but family members at home have to endure it).

Dave
 
Last edited:
I'm good with an occasional casualty, if it ends the noise. . .Darwin was mostly correct. Not like we're an endangered species.

Weird coincidence - I'm named after a relative who was killed by a bread truck - it backed over him.
 
Jeff Oslick said:
Proximity alarms for the driver also wouldn't work, because they often have to maneuver very close to other obstacles in the normal course of work and drivers would become desensitized to proximity alarms.
Click to expand...
If you combined the existing beeper with a prox sensor the beeper would only sound (to warn both the driver and a worker) when the equipment was backing towards a person or object and I'd bet that on most sites this would eliminate 90+% of the beeping without reducing safety.

And FWIW, if drivers become insensitive to an audible warning, doesn't the same apply to the other workers in the same area?

The other option is to have dedicated spotter for each rig, and that just isn't practical most of the time.
Click to expand...
Not "practical" because it trades cost to the developer against annoyance to everyone else within earshot. Obviously an easy choice for the developer but the public ought to have some say as well.
 
Sundancer said:
I'm good with an occasional casualty, if it ends the noise. . .Darwin was mostly correct. Not like we're an endangered species.

Weird coincidence - I'm named after a relative who was killed by a bread truck - it backed over him.
Click to expand...
Did it have a beeper?
 
gismo said:
If you combined the existing beeper with a prox sensor the beeper would only sound (to warn both the driver and a worker) when the equipment was backing towards a person or object and I'd bet that on most sites this would eliminate 90+% of the beeping without reducing safety.

And FWIW, if drivers become insensitive to an audible warning, doesn't the same apply to the other workers in the same area?
Click to expand...

The prox sensor would be sensing something too often to be useful. Keep in mind that equipment like loaders are articulated, and are often backing up in a tight turning circle, so the sensors would need very wide activation angles.

As I said before, it isn't about just one worker hearing the warning, it is about everyone in the area looking out for the safety of everyone around them. I've been a construction safety supervisor as part of my job for 15 years. Construction safety, just like aviation, requires multiple layers of safeguards against accidents. Backup alarms are an important part of the safety chain.

If you don't like the sound, then the simplest solution is to get the city to put noise hours restrictions in place. If it is localized problem that will be going on for some time, then windows for the neighbors that have better sound insulation can help too (as is done for airports).
 
Jeff Oslick said:
The prox sensor would be sensing something too often to be useful. Keep in mind that equipment like loaders are articulated, and are often backing up in a tight turning circle, so the sensors would need very wide activation angles.

As I said before, it isn't about just one worker hearing the warning, it is about everyone in the area looking out for the safety of everyone around them. I've been a construction safety supervisor as part of my job for 15 years. Construction safety, just like aviation, requires multiple layers of safeguards against accidents. Backup alarms are an important part of the safety chain.

If you don't like the sound, then the simplest solution is to get the city to put noise hours restrictions in place. If it is localized problem that will be going on for some time, then windows for the neighbors that have better sound insulation can help too (as is done for airports).
Click to expand...
Sensors can be aimed so they only cover the direction the equipment is headed, that would of course cost more though. Chances are that as more cities enact construction noise limitations there will be more cost effective solutions than adding an extra watcher for every piece of equipment that moves. Without such ordinances there's no incentive for adding project cost just to keep the noise down and I don't blame the workers or developers for not spending their money and I certainly wouldn't suggest that reducing jobsite safety is an acceptable compromise to the annoyance of construction noise.
 
gismo said:
Sensors can be aimed so they only cover the direction the equipment is headed, that would of course cost more though. Chances are that as more cities enact construction noise limitations there will be more cost effective solutions than adding an extra watcher for every piece of equipment that moves. Without such ordinances there's no incentive for adding project cost just to keep the noise down and I don't blame the workers or developers for not spending their money and I certainly wouldn't suggest that reducing jobsite safety is an acceptable compromise to the annoyance of construction noise.
Click to expand...

Is there an OSHA requirement for beepers? I have heard them on little subcompact cars with panel backs that are operated by the cable company etc.
 
Were I work you not only have the back up alarm, you have to blow your horn 3 times for reverse, 2 for forward and once to start the equipment......
 
I think there is an old law in Texas that states when a woman drives a motor vehicle it is required that a male walk in front of the vehicle waving a red flag.....
 
LongRoadBob said:
It's not w matter of choices. We moved here, and then at some point they decided to renovate the school next to us. Not everyone can move the the country and if we all did, you would be soon hearing the garbage trucks again.

And there seems to be a win win solution, that has been going on for ten years in an enlightened city.
I seriously doubt you loved hearing that, but it was once a day only....for a short period. The current system is way past due for overhauling. We could do better, and ought to.
Click to expand...
Getting back to the original post - I know where you are coming from. Since moving to my present address five years ago there has been nearly continuous construction on three sides. First a big house across the street, then a major renovation of an old house across the shared driveway (dismantled down to the last stick and rebuilt from scratch to look
about the same [it's "historic"]). Next another big house on the same property which is now pretty much finished - but another behind it is just getting started. For good measure,
the house on the third side has been undergoing a major renovation (still ongoing). Yesterday there were trucks and loaders all over the street and second property - installing
mature trees and other plantings. Today the third property was subject to tree trimming (chain saws and chippers). It never ends. At least the vacant lot on the fourth side is
owned by a family group who inherited it - and cannot agree on what to do. So they do nothing - which is fine with me. With my luck they will finally reach an agreement and
sell it - and Here We Go Again. There is supposedly an ordinance against construction work on weekends - but it is frequently ignored on Saturday (they do respect Sunday).
At least my escape is that I am at work during the week - so am not around to be bothered. Other family members are not so lucky.

With regard to the beepers - were it in my power I would ban them in a heartbeat. IMHO they are a band-aid "solution" that do more harm than good (like traffic lights - but
I digress..). An improvement might be a flashing strobe - but that might not work in all situations. A better answer would be to have a wide angle video camera and display
so the driver would have a rear view when backing (the beeper does more or less relieve him of the responsibility of looking where he is going, IMHO). The best answer would
be to require the operator to look where he is going at all times - and equip the machines to support such use. Some machines (like backhoes) have a seat that swivels 180 Degrees. They are not (to my knowledge) equipped to be driven with the operator facing back - but they could be! Likewise just about everything else out there that backs up frequently. IIRC in asphalt rollers the operator faces sideways - and that could be an option (but probably wouldn't work where intricate operations are performed). Perhaps a
seat that swivels 90 degrees (allowing the operator to look back) would be sufficient. Just my .02.

Dave
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top