Like Bill Bailey said: "European sirens are much more layed back; It a sort of says "yeah, there is an emergency, but let's enjoy the ride" "
A new bill introduced in New York City Council would require sirens to adopt the European two-toned model. The distinctive wail and yelp sirens might soon replaced by the softer, two-tone "hi-lo" siren. In areas nearby stations and hospitals the sirens can make a real noise problem and there are "battles" to keep stations out of areas.
Mount Sinai received numerous comlpaints concerning their ambulances, they decided to make the sirens less shrill but maintain their effectiveness. Calling the manufacturers, more siren tones were able by flipping a switch at the back of the siren. The made a trial runwith 4 units back in 2017 and the crews reported that people on the streets were just as responsive to the new sirens, so Mount SInai switched the sirens on the entire fleet of ambulances.
A professor of environmental health sciences at the University of Michigan, said that loud sirens can cause serious health problems like stress, anxiety and even cardiovascular disease. People likely find two-tone sirens more pleasing because they spread sound frequency across a longer time period than other sirens.
A spokesman for Mayor Bill de Blasio said the mayor’s office was considering the two-tone siren legislation.
He said: “Our city has always been ahead of the curve on transitioning our sirens to models that better protect New Yorkers’ hearing. This is a quality-of-life issue we take very seriously.”
At minute 2:00 to the end the clips of NYC emergency vehicles have the sound track from German emergency response clips. I simply replaced the original sound track. Seems like I have to mention it because some people misunderstood it as if they were already using these hi-lo sirens. It's only a mind game at 2:00 onwards.
European siren ... it's a term which is often used for the alternating hi-lo sirens in this video, but please keep in mind: there are only very few countries in Europe where only hi-lo sirens are legal like e.g. Germany and Austria. Living in Germany, and having only few videos from other European countries where hi-lo sirens are used (e.g. Netherlands, Poland, Austria) I face the issue that some of them used the exact same sirens which are used on the German emergency vehicles, and most others I filmed responded with emergency lights only; With maybe only 1 or 2 EVs left from abroad using other sirens I decided to only use sirens form German emergency vehicles in this video.
In most countries around Europe they use a mix of pretty much any wail/yelp and hi-lo siren, well except for some Japanese ones. But in fact any siren which is used in the USA is used somewhere in Europe as well, including special types like the Rumbler or the Federal Signal Q. Please don't think that all of Europe would only have hi-lo sirens
Maybe all emergency vehicles in NYC will have hi-lo sirens in the future. I guess most would simply use the existing hi-lo mode of their siren module. To be honest, I'm not really a fan of the hi-lo mode of American sirens because they have hardly any tremolo tuning and thus seem a bit too soft and clear. Maybe some would, but I don't believe it at the moment, invest a bit more money and purchase e.g. a set of martin horns for the pneumatic, air powered version of a hi-lo siren which is more effective than the electronic ones