Noise Flags
There are times when I feel like I’m writing for The Onion when I am reporting what happened at city council – you know, times like when I have to write about a councilor’s desire to throw marshmallow confections off the top of the RSA Tower on New Year’s Eve. Yeah, times like those times.
And yet another one of those times came at the March 4 meeting. There was an ordinance on the agenda for the council to “amend the Mobile City Code relating to noise generally.”
And now Fred Richardson has an idea for noise flags to get people to bring it down a notch.
Tags: city council, fred richardson, mobile, noise
March 12th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
And is this idea being taken seriously?
March 12th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
My favorite noise is those handy leaf-blowers, for people who never
learned how to rake. Hopefully the aliens studying us aren’t catching
that comedic dance. Someone in my neighborhood was using one this
morning - two hours on a front yard without a stich of grass. I guess
he was blowing dirt off the dirt. I read your post Ashley and of
course ran outside with a white shirt wrapped around the end of a
broomstick, and it worked! He looked up at me and three blinks later
he was no where to be seen - or heard.
March 13th, 2008 at 2:18 pm
Noise flags???!!! You city folk are strange. Out here in the sticks, just beyond the city limits, we just wave shotguns when the noise gets too loud. Seems to work nicely.
We also have special red and blue flags that we wave that operate as an unspoken request to turn up the Toby Keith so the rest of the street can hear it. I guess you could call that a noise flag.
March 13th, 2008 at 3:29 pm
“You city folk are strange. Out here in the sticks, just beyond the city limits, we just wave shotguns when the noise gets too loud. Seems to work nicely.”
Is that what you call those metal things with a long tube? I was testing
the noise flag thing on guys with tinted windows and boom boxes the
other night and some of them kept pointing one of those long metal things
at me. Strange too, but it looked like the ends were sawed off
or something. I thought it was their own noise flagpole without the
flag so I just laughed and laughed.
March 15th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
Most likely, you only thought you were waving your Noise Flag, but you were actually waving your Murder Flag. Thank God you mixed up the colors!
Be careful. It’s a crazy world out there. Next time someone points a sawed-off shotgun in your general direction, don’t just stand there and laugh. Run!
March 16th, 2008 at 9:45 pm
Noise pollution’s not a laughing matter — it can literally make people ill!!
March 17th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
“Noise pollution’s not a laughing matter — it can literally make
people ill!!”
Sorry about that . .you’re right,noise pollution is no laughing
matter. I think we started all the “laughing” about Mr. Richardson’s
idea for noise flags. For me that’s worth a chuckle, or two,
or even three. You also brought up a great point because a lot of
people do not take noise pollution seriously. Often they don’t
realize it’s around them until they take a vacation to the countryside
and hear a ringing sound in their ears. Even in a medium-sized city
like Mobile we are inundated with noise - airplanes, garbage trucks,
18-wheelers, helicopters, motorcycles, mufflers, trains, leaf blowers,
overblown music, sirens ( I feel sorry for all the dogs - but who’s
looking after their ears?) - and so on. At least we don’t live in
Bangkok or Mexico City - residents there suffer noise pollution on
a level Americans can only imagine ( I spent three weeks in Bangkok and
the noise pollution was almost as bad as the air pollution.)
The big worry here seems to be loud music or booming from cars -
and I think that issue should be addressed by the police, not
the city council or citizens. Not only is it noise pollution but
it puts that driver and all other drivers around him in danger when
emergency vehicles come into play.