How Electric Vehicles lead to the end of traffic noise pollution
Electric vehicles are too silent
Electric vehicles (EV) are silent. Particularly at lower speeds, under 30 Km/h. EVs are too quiet, according to regulators. EVs at low speeds beep alarms to warn pedestrians.
What at first glance may seem a defect of EVs can be ours. We got too used to tolerating a noise-polluted environment.
Our environment is just too loud
Noise pollution is so prevalent that it is easy to dismiss; it is just how things are. Such a mindset overlooks that noise pollution is much more than a nuisance.
Noise is a pollutant in the US Clean Air Act, and the European Union has a specific Environmental Noise Directive to address noise pollution.
Noise affects health
Noise pollution has serious health effects. In Western Europe, 1.6 million years of healthy life are lost yearly from noise pollution. The unhealthy effects of noise pollution include:
- Several cardiovascular diseases,
- Rising stress hormones,
- Cognitive impairments, including Alzheimer,
- Increased risk of anxiety and depression,
- Increased risk of diabetes and obesity,
- Besides the more known sleep disturbance and hearing loss.
Noise hurts animals too
Noise pollution also affects wildlife, something that the Covid lockdowns made more evident to researchers. It can also be particularly hard for pets, domestic, and captive animals at zoos in urban areas.
A meta-analysis review paper estimates that noise alone endangers the survival of over 100 animal species, both on land and sea, across amphibians, arthropods, birds, fish mammals, mollusks, and reptilians species.
Electric Vehicles can aid
Enter EVs with their lower noise. Traffic noise is one of the primary sources of noise pollution. Part of the problem with “silent” EVs is our desensitization to noise from overexposure. Were our environments less noisy, it would be much easier to…
