Police sirens? - NYPD

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http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/15/nyregion/15sirens.html?hp

June 15, 2007
Earsplitting Symphony, With the Maestro in Blue
By CARA BUCKLEY

There is the yelp, an electronic yodel that grabs attention at intersections or kicks off chases. There is the wail, more traditional; it sounds like the windup police sirens of yore. There is the ?hi-lo,? dubbed the ?European? siren by some, because it evokes the police chases seen ? and heard ? in French and Italian films.

The air-horn siren works well, officers say, for clearing intersections of pedestrians and getting the attention of speeding drivers. And the fast, or priority, siren sounds like an asteroid blaster from an old video game, and feels like a jackhammer assault on the ears.

That is the menu of sirens available to New York City police officers, each one making a specific impression, each at an officer?s fingertips. The sirens allow officers to choose sounds with a personal touch, like the conductors of a screeching, sound-bending orchestra.

And there is something new. Christened with a tantalizing name, the Rumbler, it sends out low, bone-rattling vibrations, so it is not only heard, but also felt. One has been tested on the streets of New York, but the jury is out on whether it is effective, offensive or terrifying.

Taken together, the sirens of the Police Department provide a remarkable ? as well as cacophonous ? audio record of policing today.

Every time you hear that distinct and invasive wail, which may not technically be a wail, chances are the police officer behind it has made a deliberate, even aesthetic choice.

The decision is wholly subjective; there are no guidelines. Officers are simply told to mix the sirens up.

On a recent spin around Manhattan, up the Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive and then down the West Side Highway, Officer Spiros Komis, who has been with the highway patrol for 20 years, offered up an aural palette of what sirens he uses, and when. What would he do if he were chasing a speeding driver?

?I go through the whole mode,? he said, his fingers hovering above a dash-mounted keyboard that controls a police car?s lights and sounds.

?But I might start with a wail,? he said, pressing a button. The air filled with a familiar nasal drone. ?And then I?d go to a constant yelp,? he said, and the car began bleating. A red Acura driving ahead promptly pulled right, into the center lane, its driver nervously checking his speed. ?Then I?d give a little bit of the air horn; I?d give it a little toot,? he said, and gave it a little toot.

?Most highway officers hit the air horn,? he said. A gray Toyota RAV4 that had taken the Acura?s place ahead of the squad car quickly swung out of the way, too, as its driver stared fixedly ahead. The car in front of the RAV4, a gray Volvo, also pulled out of the way.

?Like a hot knife through butter,? Officer Komis said, satisfied.

But sometimes sirens have no effect, no matter what they sound like.

?Elderly people are trickier,? Officer Komis said. ?You might need to pull out the public address system. And an individual attempting to flee is not going to respond to anything.?

New York officers face stiff competition from other sounds, and few people are more accustomed to a constant assault on the ears than New Yorkers. Wearers of iPods are cocooned behind personal walls of sound, and drivers are snug inside hermetically sealed luxury cars.

Summer presents its own challenges: Car windows are up, air-conditioners blast and music usually does, too. Then there are cellphones, the near-constant honking of horns and all the other sirens: fire trucks, ambulances and so on.

?You live in New York, there?s too many sirens,? said Lt. Luis Perez, the commanding officer of the Police Department?s driver education and training unit. ?We just hear too much.?

Police departments began using manual windup sirens early in the last century, and models with electrical motors around the Depression years. In the early 1970s, manufacturers introduced sirens with different patterns and frequencies, to address a growing problem: Officers in different police cars using the same frequency often could not hear each other when approaching the same intersection, a dreaded phenomenon known as the wash-out effect that is a recipe for a crash. The yelp, the wail, the fast and the hi-lo sirens were born.

During their four-day drivers? training courses, police recruits are taught the importance of mixing up sirens. New police officers also tend to overestimate the power their sirens have, said Officer Daniel Donza, a driver trainer.

Another trainer, Officer Paul Cacioppo, said, ?You can never be visible enough or heard enough.? (Still, officers are not allowed to use the siren without good reason. If they do, they can lose vacation days.)

Now comes the Rumbler. Maybe.

To experience it is to feel a little earthquake beneath one?s feet.

Robert S. Martinez, director of the department?s fleet services unit, says the Rumbler has brought pedestrians and traffic to a dead stop every time he has tried out the test model. Departments in Alexandria, Va., and elsewhere in the Washington area already have Rumblers, according to Tom Morgan of Federal Signal, a leading siren supplier. It works like a bass-heavy boombox, sending out vibrations through two woofers.

But though the Rumbler is bound to grab the attention of even the most jaded New Yorker, it may frighten too many people, Mr. Martinez said.

?It?s debatable whether this would be good or bad for New York City,? he said. ?You don?t want to hurt people?s ears. Even though it?s a lower decibel, it almost seems offensive.?
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The main problem I see is that one of the characteristics of low frequency sound is that you can't tell where it's coming from. A while ago I found out about some testing that was taking place in Europe with a new type of siren. The "Ooo-Wah" or "Hi-lo" was being mixed every few seconds with a burst of "static." This mix of frequencies made it much easier for people to tell where the siren was coming from, especially in the echoing urban canyons of major cities.
 
Pffft, best siren is weeeeeeoooooooowwwwww. You know, like the ones in the Blues Brothers.
 
When I was in NY the newer cars used sirens that sounded like a laser cannon from a 50s action movie. It was really painful to the ears.
 
The best siren is when the police car has crash and the sound is like the car surrenders.
 
un-dee said:
When I was in NY the newer cars used sirens that sounded like a laser cannon from a 50s action movie. It was really painful to the ears.
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When I did I ride along with Salt Lake City PD, the cop said they use that tone when approaching intersections, especially if they are going to run the light.
 
jensked said:
Dude, those sirens are painfull!

This sunday I was fiddling around with a police motorbike. The police officer couldn't get the headlamp out and asked me to do it. I accidentaly hit the siren when my ear was about 50cm from the speaker. It litteraly was like a punch in the face.
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I'll agree with that. My brother-in-law has a police siren on his golf cart. He likes to hit it when we are working on his cart in my shop, mainly just to scare the crap out of me... :lol:
 
Did the article explain why it is that i recall and many do. One day we all woke up and firetrucks had police sirens, ambulances had fire sirens, and the police had some crazy mix of the three. Im just not sure i just know they aren't what they used to be.
 
I guess living in NY for 15 years the police or ambulance siren is just another sound of environment to me and not much of a bother. My preferred sound is the long whining siren mixed in with the quick ones, sort of the typical American police siren one hears (or used to hear) in the movies. From the driver's perspective, to me it is the most effective one, long whine can be placed reasonably quickly to figure out whether car is coming behind you or at you. Exception is the fire engine which when it blasts its low air-horns is like being raped by a rhino and you just get the f*** out.

Some years ago NYC was high on noise pollution, and effectively ordered police and ambulances to not be so liberal with their sirens, some other weird, lower frequency sounds came to the scene. As a result, you really couldn't tell where the hell is the ambulance coming from in order to prepare to let it go by or not collide with it on the intersection.
 
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