How Much Can You Protect Your Hearing from Street Jerks?

Hi. I am new to this forum. I have noise induced tinnitus since since I went to a bar/club in San Francisco where it was so loud I probably did not even hear when ringing started until I left. After a few weeks/months it got better but I have a little permanent hissing in my head or little high pitch in my right ear. I also got hyperacusis with it. I was given by my ENT specially molded earplugs that block excesive loud noise but do not muffle completely sounds like foam earplugs. I wear them whenever I feel is too loud, like gym or movie theaters. I avoid going to bars or concerts.
In my last weeks, my tinnitus seemed barely noticeably I diD not even notice hissing, except pitch in my right ear only after covering up my ear. But recently when going to shopping to whole foods next to a busy street corner, some jerk was revving up his motorcycle engine at red lights on stop intersection for longer than 10 seconds. I was not very close to him thankfully, but on parking lot but his revving was loud enough to painfully irritate my ears a little bit. Once I came back home to quiet room, I noticed my tinnitus bit more upset with hissing.

This is not the first time a motorcycle reviving induced tinnitus. Usually after a few days or so it calms down. But to prevent it, I am thinking of going extreme and using those earplugs between home and work or shopping.

 

I do not think you can. It is destiny. My hearing damage was a fluke too. I always protected my ears in loud environment. But than...wrong time, wrong place. One explosion changed my life. No way I could have foreseen this.
You can't have earplugs in your ears all the time.
I still carry earplugs with me at al times. Nine out of a times you are fast enough to plug your ears in the rare event this is needed.

Don't listen to high level sounds for longer than needed. Instantly put your fingers in your ears. This will only take e few seconds. A loud explosion is a different story. Usually you will be to late.

 

Try not to over protect your ears or you will find your ears oversensitive to sounds and hyperacusis could happen.
The odd loud sound that's avoidable day to day would have to be really loud for quite a while to cause and permanent damage .......lots of love glynis

 

Destiny? In America it is legal to purchase gun. I hope someone sooner or later will shoot on him on street to mark his destiny. What he is doing is destroying lives of others like tinnitus sufferers and putting public in general at risk when distracting with his show. People like them are menace to society and South Park accurately describes those type of bikers (loud and obnoxious) in episode F Word.

Anyway I will always have earplugs or earmuffs ready in my car just in case with earplugs in my pocket when walking.

 

Motorcycles often need to be revved at a stop, or else they will stall out (I drive one). There is, of course, a fair amount of idiocy and overly loud tailpipes in that culture. However, even a pretty loud bike is not loud enough to be damaging if you're 10-20 feet away from it.

 

Ok I think you're taking it a little too far here.. You can't get mad at everyone in the world who makes loud noise.. Fact is not many people think about or even know of the 1% that suffer from tinnitus and can't handle loud noise. To top it all off, most people probably don't even think it's that loud.

 

Also, sorry about your situation, and I hope it calms back down for you. Unfortunately these things happen, just the way it is. It's good to always have ear protection with you, but as glynis said, it's also important not to over protect.

best/

 

Believe me when I tell you I can understand your anger and frustration.
I am in a similar situation. I did not cause my hearing loss, H and T. Someone else did. I can't say too much about the incident because I now have to fight to get some sort of "compensation". The person that caused my hearing loss is "not cooperating" and feels he isn't to blame.
So again, believe me I understand anger and frustration!

 

How do you know that? If I read correct it is allowed for >1000cc motorbikes to have 106 dbA exhausts (legally). Even with the inverse law of sound it's 97 dB at 8 meters away which is 26 feet. That's too loud. And that is, if they obey the law. Most jerks remove the dB killers which are there for a reason. It's not like they were invented to punish or bully people. So if the exhausts is 110 dbA it's even louder.