Real Progress

11 Daily Abominations We Could Do Without

To my horror, car manufacturers now seem to be installing reverse beeping warnings on new electric cars.

I was mortified when I heard my first one a few weeks ago. I said, “Nooooooooooo, you’ve got to be kidding.” But sure enough, we now have listen to more dings and beeps with each new day, in addition to the electric beeps for unlocking and locking doors, as well as the reverse beeps on larger vehicles.

All these beeps, from so many appliances, cause brain and nervous system damage and wear our bodies down due to a constantly triggered stress response—both strong and mild. Our bodies are still wired for living in natural settings without these constant alarms.

With all the much more awful stuff going on in the world, I hesitate to write about the smaller daily insults in our privileged first-world lives, but they deserve some negative attention now and then. Here are 10 other insults that I would be happy to see disappear forever from daily life:

1) Leaf blowers (gas and electric) – these machines can be heard for a mile or more away; just think, when you use one, you are disturbing most people within a one mile radius. If your gardeners use one, please ask them not to. Electric ones are equally as disturbingly loud

2) Harley Davidsons (and all loud motorcycles) – these little penis-mobiles need their very own junkyard where they can be dismantled and melted for useful parts

3) After-market mufflers designed to be loud (all of them) – the new scourge

4) Gas lawn mowers – ridiculously loud and polluting, go electric, which are relatively quiet

5) New trucks as loud as airplanes – seriously, these huge trucks (often with one person driving and no payload) are now insanely loud and stinky

6) Monstrously loud garbage truck pick-up beginning at 6AM – such a horrific racket so early and then all day long

7) Low-flying propeller planes that drone on and on – the “leaf blowers of the sky”

8) Old collector cars that strut down the street and emit noxious, choking fumes – while owners driving them think they are so cool

9) New LED headlights – these literally blind me for seconds after encounter; I’m not sure how these are safer. Friends report the same. New cars also seem to run headlights now during broad daylight – it’s all too much blinding light!

10) Sitting in your car for long periods while running your engine and air conditioning and scrolling your phone (and sometimes with the headlights on) – just no. I call these “sitters.”

How do you feel about this list and what would you add?