Traffic noise hurts children's brains

We already know pollution from cars increases childhood asthma, and I imagine those pollutants could affect brain development as well.

Edit: Also I would be curious to know how dog barks affect children's brains. Of all the environmental noise, dogs are often the loudest and most jarring, anecdotally.

In 2021 I decided to move from San Francisco to Venice, Italy - where obviously there are no cars.

People walk a lot more. The level of noise in this city is by far the weakest compared even to a small village town, because of lack of cars.

I love it here. It's only anecdotal, but I am sure that this positively affect many things in my life, including my stress levels and the quality of my sleep.

I might be overly sensitive to car noise but I find revving engines extremely annoying. Fortunately (and by choice) I live in a relatively low traffic area, so at least at night it's got almost no traffic, but during the day it's got enough of it to force me to shut close the thermopane windows and doors AND turn on an electric fan heater without the heat, so the low frequency white noise it makes masks the occasional roaring of the car engine passing by.

Also it's not like all the cars, most cars pass by with their engine on idle so they make little noise. Every now and then (which by law of statistics translates to always, eventually after some time), some idiot accelerates aggressively when their clutch is disengaged, resulting in the engine squealing like a demented stuck pig and me almost getting a seizure out of stress.

And then there's the occasional SUV with tank tracks instead of tires (figuratively speaking, they have tires suitable for climbing muddy hills, not cruising through residential areas) which zooms around at 80Km/h, in this case can't hear the engine because the darn tracks make so much noise you can hear them from several blocks away.

Hate. Cars.

Also an unpopular opinion which will 100% guarantee I get fiercely downvoted: "they" should make gas prices not 10-20% but 4x - 8x higher. So the vast majority of the idiots would have to take the public transportation system instead of the current standard of 3 cars for a family of two and sitting in traffic for 90 minutes to make what would otherwise be a 20-30 minutes transit. Differential price for individual (luxury) transportation.

This feels like a study with many confounding factors.

I wonder how soon we'll be charging those "crackle map" exhaust hoonigans with assault on the un-thought-of children.

Two of the best parts, to me, about electric cars are:

1) lower pollution where people live, so you can go for runs and such without breathing in a bunch of noxious gas

2) how much quieter inner city walking will become. It can’t come fast enough!

So beyond "make the schools themselves" quieter, some analysis of "traffic noise where the kids live" vs "non-traffic noise" would be useful here.

There is a lot in the article about negative effects of all sorts of unwanted noise.

But it seems like it would be just as easy to go to "this is why we need well-built schools and well-insulated cars and big parking lots and sprawling low-density housing so the kids can have quiet at home too" as to "get rid of cars" from this.

I drove through a school the other day. The school was actually part of a 6 lane highway, like, it was built over it, the highway kinda formed a tunnel through a piece of one of the school buildings which flanked both sides of the roadway.

Not really sure what's up with that, but holy fuck did i feel bad for those kids. Just one of those things that makes you go "the fuck is wrong with this country (it was in the US)".

From the Barcelona study linked in the article:

"Conclusions We observed that exposure to road traffic noise at school, but not at home, was associated with slower development of working memory, complex working memory, and attention in schoolchildren over 1 year. Associations with noise fluctuation indicators were more evident than with average noise levels in classrooms."

So, at the very least, the title of the original article does not seem justified. In fact the whole article comes off like a bad internet argument, tons of links that aren't understood, and the whole thing is designed to reach a pretermined conclusion, which is, of course:

"Car-free zones The best way to protect children from excessive noise is by reducing traffic around schools, says Foraster. "

I mean. Why not just sound proof class rooms? Seems way easier than entirely reengineering traffic in a dense urban environment. This really feels like "think of the kids!" now applied to traffic.

> "The guidelines don't [mention] fluctuations and peaks. Every time there is a noise peak, it is a distraction which can affect children's attention [span] and working memory,"

This is the worst part, I think. Rail and aircraft are at least predictable and, presumably, no louder than they have to be. But all it takes is one asshole with a loud car or motorbike and hundreds or even thousands of people are disturbed. Why are these bastards allowed to continue with ever louder motors? How do people live with it? Do they not realise that it could be quiet? This is something we could choose to have quite easily.

Adult brains, too. I appreciate the study, but this is one of those "yes, obviously" situations for anyone who has ever been outside amongst cars.