Having used bells, two tone air horns, yelp/wail/white noise and bull horn over a 32 year career, I can honestly say that two tone air horns worked the best (in an urban environment).

@theaylesburycyclist8756

3 жыл бұрын

I completely agree. Until recently, some of the ambulances in the service I work for had electronic two tones, and I always used them. They were massively more effective.! I'm not sure if it was because people are so used to hearing wailers/yelpers nowadays. 🤷‍♂️

@bencoatesworth7731

4 ай бұрын

I agree as a pedestrian in a busy city centre with police cars all over with sirens on the shared roadway with pedestrians. You drown out to the wailing of them trying to get through But when a two tone fire engine came past everyone stopped and let it through its sounds more authoritative in my opinion more move out my way I’m coming compared to a hello could I be past with the wail

20 years later, and this isn't a thing 😂

@Charlzey1998

3 жыл бұрын

It is it's just ridiculously sped up without the gap

@dan999uk

3 жыл бұрын

@@Charlzey1998 and without the white noise, which was the entire point.

@lublinbusenthusiast1120

3 жыл бұрын

@@dan999uk i agree

Well it's 2018 and I still haven't heard it used anywhere. Maybe people should learn to check their mirrors more for flashing lights and turn down the music to listen for sirens. Mechanical sirens have proven to be more effective. Especially in addition to a traditional electronic siren. If you hear a siren always check your surroundings to see where it's approaching from. The whole point of a siren is for people to know from all angles. Especially at an intersection.

@Gripengamer

5 жыл бұрын

Mechanical siren, like martinhorn?

@BritishCapy

4 жыл бұрын

It’s 2020 now and still nothing like this

@znovosad555

4 жыл бұрын

Picadilli Martin horns are not mechanical and use air compressors correct? I’m referring to the more traditional federal Q, or other brand equivalent.

@CymruEmergencyResponder

3 жыл бұрын

@@znovosad555 Martinshorns are more effective than Q

20 years later, ambulances in the Netherlands started to use 2 tone airhorns again....

They are widely used for reversing alarms, there they are effective. Not loud enough for emergency vehicles. What is effective is old fashioned two tone air horns in conjunction with electronic sirens. Low frequency sirens like howler or growler can be very effective.

Obv a roaring success 18 years on haha. -I heard it once about 15 years ago.

I remember they went through a phase of trialing all sorts of wowed siren ideas. I remember hearing one in Sussex on an ambulance that sounded like a cross between a seagull and the ghostbusters car!

For a moment i thought i was watching Monty Python. "Two years of development have produced this sound." *white noise siren* 😂 I love it.

This was featured in london's burning around the same time if anyone remebers!

We Hong Kong got this Emergency Sound from the Ambulances and Fire Trucks when Hong Kong was still under the control of the British Government.

We trialled one of these on a traffic car, bloody useless.

@colinmcmahon5829

3 жыл бұрын

Its the actual recording from Paul Ruebens being busted in the movie theater. The noise he made. Log it, send to Bose.

@colinmcmahon5829

3 жыл бұрын

Will U2 the bloody Pagimoda Troup then. Right, Jean E? Colice Par, and playing thru

@colinmcmahon5829

3 жыл бұрын

Feeling better, dear? Lovely. I'll get you a cuppa.

2 years of development... we never used it.

Well white noise is finding a use in reversing alarms nowadays.

Never heard it until watching this

I remember watching this as it aired, back in the good old days. Pleased this white noise tone didn't take off!

From 70s too 2024 two tones are best siren to use

Both teams of the football match looked only because they thought wtf.

There is a new siren which is a higher pitch siren which allows people to here where the emergency vehicles are coming from it is linked in with different sound waves

Sounds like after the siren the speaker is busted with the white noise 😂

I heard it used once in the early 2000s. I can't understand why it was utilised! The directional sound bursts I mean.

3:55 notice how we actually don't get to hear the siren? And throughout the whole video we actually don't hear the siren coming from a vehicle? I think this was bollocks edit: I'm daft, the ending has it

A lot of sarcastic comments, but I certainly heard 3 or 4 variations of it throughout the 2000's in the North East, with various different types of siren wailing that had white noise bursts in-between. Whilst I haven't heard the white noise in more modern sirens for a while now, has it occurred to people that maybe more modern sirens are still just a further evolution of this research rather than being exactly the same as a 20 year old clip?

@cjeam9199

3 жыл бұрын

Well there’s definitely no white-noise bursts in the middle is there. Thinking about it though I don’t know why not, because all reversing cautions on construction vehicles have changed to white noise now and we are told that’s better for directional information. Maybe it doesn’t get heard by people in cars though, reversing cautions are aimed at pedestrians.

2:20 well they obviously looked for the siren which was hilarious

Well it's 2020 and i havn't heard it anywere

Sirens or not, that roundabout they ran the test on is an absolute nightmare 🤣🤣

I used to drive a good old transit ambulance it had two tones and a then a wail and yelp siren fitted With the wail and two tones going in heavy traffic never really had a problem but that was in the 90s 😉

The problems with the white noise were that this sound wouldn't carry very far. You don't get something for nothing, if you are using the available energy to generate sound over a high bandwidth, you can't expect it to travel like the regular siren. That being said, it could still be useful. The other day, i was sitting at a complex intersection, i knew there was a fire engine approaching because of the siren, i had windows open and could hear the siren no problem, just couldn't tell where it was coming from. One of the white noise tones offered by premier hazard (the manufacturer of the siren in the clip) was yelp with a short burst of white noise after each yelp. If the engine was using this tone, instead of just normal yelp, i might have been able to predict it's location with far greater accuracy. The white noise might not help 100m away through closed windows, but it could still help pedestrians, cyclists, drivers not listening to music with their windows open etc. I thought at the time that these sirens would become commonplace. If they had been developed in the USA, perhaps they would be? Over 20 years later we have some ambulances and most police cars using the "pipe" speaker, which is significantly/substantially quieter than other speakers (it's not used anywhere else in the world except the UK and maybe Ireland). And the piercer siren tone which, while it might be claimed is more attention getting again/perceived as louder and more urgent, has a massively shorter range than the other siren tones. Emergency services/installers seem to have very little ability to assess the performance of the warning equipment

Died a quick death, never to be heard again.....From experience compressed air two tone horns seemed to be best. The more effective redesign that is used a fair bit in the US and is on a few vehicles in the UK (the limited use is down to cost) is the Fed Sig Rumbler (& other manufacturers equivalents) that adds low frequency versions of the tones that better penetrate glass & metal and can even cause vibrations perceptible to humans in cars - search on here for examples

remember this

I guess this new siren never caught on because it's now 2024 and no department that I'm familiar with currently uses anything like this. They use the traditional yelp, wail, hi-lo and phaser sirens. In my department we often didn't turn on the sirens at all, and just air-horned the shit out of everyone! 😅

It doesn’t sound like an emergency vehicle siren To me

00:18 Look at the white Car on the left. What a Pillock XD

Great you can now drive an ambulance while blasting Pac Man sounds out of the speaker............

I say the solution is to increase the loudness, Most people can't hear sirens cause they got the radio blasting or other things to tune it out, So I'd say upping the decibles by 100 or so than they currently are thus making it loud enough, might be the answer.

@mace_inc.8455

5 жыл бұрын

Problem is, we can't increase the volume of the sirens. Here's why: Most sirens currently reach a maximum of 120dB (A US fire truck mechanical siren reaches 123dB). At 120dB, the human ear will start to feel pain instead of the sound, which will cause damage to the ear in less than a minute. This means that it won't be possible to make the sirens louder, since if a siren goes beyond 120dB, it could damage the hearing of pedestrians, which would be bad for emergency services since they may get sued for it.

@cjeam9199

3 жыл бұрын

Since decibel is a logarithmic scale, I think upping it by 100db would make it the loudest thing on earth and a weapon of mass destruction.

@dragontoothless4351

3 жыл бұрын

@@cjeam9199 Especially as 180dB is instant death.

@dan999uk

3 жыл бұрын

And make ambulance drivers deafer than they already are.

Ten years of development in Leeds lol

How’s that worked out for you

un video fue grabado que hace 20 años hoy en día en el 1999

lol it didn't make it to 2020 (updated)

why didn't this work?

The level of traffic is expected to double in the next thirty yurrs.

real Thomas the tank engine town

1:13

White noise siren is cursed

Lol it sounds like Pac Man just shit himself

Lol fucking cars everywhere. Bring forth the flying car

Duh. Tea, Diana? Gives it away before the wedding.

When they showed the video on the tv they didnt do the test multiple times which makes the results actually inconclusive so me a little prick is somehow smarter than Leeds University

Whatever happened with the trial?? Was it successful??

@jamesosborne4567

6 жыл бұрын

The even got it featured in an episode of London's Burning! The story went something like this...Some local fella was annoyed by the loud sirens and complained to the Fire Station chaps who told them how they had this new one that could be a lot quieter because it was directional. Pure marketing propaganda. LOL. I really wish I could find it online. It would have been around 1999 I guess.

@paulsimpson6899

4 жыл бұрын

@@jamesosborne4567 I remember that episode and I was about to mention it before I saw you had. It lasted a few episodes I think. At a time when London fire engines also had pathetic blue strobe beacons that were naff.

@koolyman

3 жыл бұрын

Here's one fire engine with various tones from Scotland kzread.info/dash/bejne/fHqZrM-CfL2tj9Y.html

@dan999uk

3 жыл бұрын

Well, how many times have you heard this being used by emergency vehicles?

Where is that siren now???

@wagwanpussio

5 жыл бұрын

Glow in the Dark I kinda like it

And in the Uk this did nothing

No, you're NOT Doctors. Have you got the pac- man noise?

I always thought the idea for police cars was that criminals couldnt tell where it was coming from and it was designed that way.

@dan999uk

3 жыл бұрын

No, that's silly. If police don't want to alert criminals they just don't use their sirens. The entire purpose of a siren is to make you as noticeable as possible.

I would feel embarrassed using that as a test ;p

This is utter rubbish. I work for the ambulance service, and the standard emergency sirens is far more effective than this stupid one they were trialling. People would be confused with this sound if it went live and and national. Im glad it never came through.

@eXe09

6 жыл бұрын

You are glad something more efficient in saving lives never came through? Sad

@koolyman

6 жыл бұрын

David Andrews your comment seems a bit emotional? The video seems to contradict your claim. Can you back up yours?

@CurtisDensmore1

6 жыл бұрын

You say both that the standard siren IS more effective and that people WOULD be confused with the new one. Have you used both or not? The point of the new siren is that it's easier to locate. That's a fact. Pure tones are harder to locate than complex tones. Our brains evolved to locate complex tones. Let's leave this one to the neuroscientist.

@bluebottle1617

5 жыл бұрын

Would it be practical to go back to the two-tone air horns they used to have on emergency vehicles?

@simon2k4

5 жыл бұрын

@@CurtisDensmore1 its clearly not a 'new' siren as this video is dated back to 1999. The current ambulance sirens have evolved since what it was back then. Obviously this one wasn't as effective as the one they chose to use instead otherwise it would've made it onto all ambulances.

It's so disappointing this research hasn't resulted in an effective white-noise embellished siren used everywhere. The traditional whale tones are annoying af.

Used a vehicle with one fitted. Absolute rubbish.

A load of crap