Hey everyone, welcome back to My Weird Prompts. We are coming to you from our usual spot here in Jerusalem, and honestly, today is one of those days where the topic feels a little too close to home. Like, literally right outside our window.
Herman Poppleberry here, and yeah, I am feeling this one in my bones today. Our housemate Daniel sent us a prompt that is basically the soundtrack to our lives in the city center. He was talking about the constant, relentless honking that happens right outside our front door.
It is a unique kind of torture, isn't it? You are trying to have a conversation, or sleep, or just exist, and then suddenly there is this three-second blast of a car horn because someone is annoyed that the light turned green half a second ago. Daniel mentioned it goes on until three in the morning sometimes, and he is not exaggerating.
Not at all. And the thing that really caught my eye in his prompt was the connection to public health. We tend to think of noise as just an annoyance, something you just have to deal with if you live in a city. But Daniel pointed out that it is actually a major health risk. We are talking about cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, sleep deprivation. It is a silent killer, or well, a very loud killer in this case.
Right, and the frustration comes from the lack of enforcement. Daniel did some digging and found that in all of Israel, there is less than one ticket issued per day for illegal honking. That is wild when you think about how many thousands of times it happens in Jerusalem alone every hour.
It is the classic enforcement gap. The police are busy with security, they are understaffed, and even if they wanted to do something, how do you prove it in court? A police officer hears a honk in a sea of cars, pulls someone over, and the driver just says it was the guy behind him. Without a verifiable record, it is almost impossible to make a ticket stick.
Which is why Daniel is suggesting AI as the solution. Using smart cameras and noise sensors to automate the whole thing. It sounds like the obvious fix, but it opens up this massive can of worms regarding privacy and surveillance. So today, we are going to dive into how other cities are tackling this, the tech behind it, and whether we can actually fix the noise without turning Jerusalem into a total panopticon.
I have been looking into the research on this, Corn, and the health stuff is actually terrifying. There was a study from the European Environment Agency that estimated long-term exposure to environmental noise contributes to twelve thousand premature deaths and forty-eight thousand new cases of ischemic heart disease every year in Europe alone.
Twelve thousand deaths? Just from noise?
Exactly. And it is not just the volume. It is the startle response. When you hear a sudden, loud honk, your body releases cortisol and adrenaline. Your blood pressure spikes. Your heart rate goes up. If that happens once a day, fine. But if it happens fifty times a night while you are trying to sleep, your body never actually recovers. You are in a constant state of low-level physiological stress.
That explains why I am so grumpy in the mornings. But seriously, it is a second-order effect that people ignore. We talk about air pollution all the time, but noise pollution is just as insidious because it is invisible.
It really is. And in a city like Jerusalem, where the streets are narrow and the stone buildings reflect the sound, it gets amplified. It is a concrete canyon of noise. So, when Daniel asks about cities that have figured this out, the first place everyone looks is Paris.
Oh, I have heard about this. They have those sensors that look like jellyfish, right?
Yes, they are called Meduse sensors, developed by a group called Bruitparif. They are actually really cool from a technical standpoint. Instead of just one microphone, they have four microphones arranged in a tetrahedral shape.
Okay, explain that to me. Why four?
It is all about triangulation. If you have just one microphone, you know it is loud, but you do not know where the sound is coming from. With four microphones, the AI can calculate the time-of-arrival difference for the sound waves reaching each sensor. It can pinpoint the exact source of the noise in three-dimensional space.
So it can distinguish between a car honking on the street and, say, a construction site or a loud person on a balcony?
Exactly. It creates a sort of acoustic map. And in Paris, they have linked these sensors to cameras. When the noise hits a certain decibel threshold, the camera triggers, captures the license plate, and the system generates a fine automatically. They started testing this a couple of years ago, and it has been a game-changer for high-traffic areas.
But that brings us straight to the Big Brother problem. If we have cameras and microphones on every corner that are smart enough to track individual cars, how long before they are tracking individual people? Or listening to conversations?
That is the million-dollar question. The Paris system tries to get around this by only keeping the data if a violation is triggered. The rest of the time, the data is processed locally on the device and then discarded. They are not supposed to be recording audio for the sake of recording audio. But as we discussed back in episode two hundred fifty-three when we talked about the fraying social contract, once the infrastructure is there, the temptation to use it for other things is huge.
Right, the mission creep is real. Today it is honking, tomorrow it is monitoring political protests or tracking who you are meeting for coffee. And in a place like Jerusalem, where tensions are already high, adding more surveillance is a very sensitive subject.
It is. But we have to weigh that against the very real physical harm being done to the residents. If the choice is between a bit more surveillance and ten thousand people having chronic high blood pressure, where do we draw the line?
Well, before we solve that philosophical crisis, let us take a quick break for our sponsors.
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Alright, thanks Larry. I think a lead helmet might be a bit much for most people, but I can see the appeal after a night of three a.m. honking.
Honestly, some days I would consider it. But let us get back to the tech. You mentioned Paris, but Daniel also mentioned New York. What is the situation there?
New York has been surprisingly aggressive lately. They launched a pilot program using what they call noise cameras. It is a similar setup to Paris, focusing on loud mufflers and illegal honking. They started with just a few sensors, but the results were so successful that they are expanding it city-wide.
How do they define successful? Is it just about the revenue from the fines?
No, they actually saw a measurable drop in noise levels in the areas where the cameras were installed. It turns out that when people know there is a five hundred dollar fine waiting for them if they rev their engine or lay on the horn, they actually change their behavior. It is the first time we have seen a real deterrent for noise in a major American city.
Five hundred dollars is a serious fine. That would definitely make me think twice. But what about the legal side? Daniel mentioned that in Israel, the police are worried about these tickets being contested in court. How does New York handle the burden of proof?
That is where the AI comes in. The system provides a video clip that is synced with the audio data. You can actually see the car and see the visual representation of the sound waves coming from it. It is very hard to argue with that in court. It is not just an officer saying I think I heard a honk. It is a scientific record of the event.
I wonder if that would fly here. The Israeli legal system can be quite protective of due process. If the AI makes a mistake, who is liable? And how do we know the sensor was calibrated correctly?
Those are the hurdles. You need a very strict certification process for the equipment. It has to be treated like a radar gun or a breathalyzer. But the technology is getting there. There is another city that took a completely different approach, which I find fascinating. Have you heard about what they did in Mumbai?
No, tell me.
They called it the Punishing Signal. Mumbai is one of the loudest cities in the world, and the honking at red lights is legendary. People just honk the entire time they are waiting for the light to turn green, as if that will somehow make it happen faster.
I have seen that in Jerusalem too. The light is red, and people are still honking. It makes zero sense.
Exactly. So the Mumbai police installed decibel meters at the intersections. If the noise level crossed eighty-five decibels while the light was red, the timer would reset. The light would stay red for even longer.
That is genius! It is like a collective punishment for being impatient.
It really is. They put up big signs that said, honk more, wait more. It went viral, and it actually worked. It turned the honking into a social taboo because if you honk, you are the reason everyone else has to wait another minute. It used social pressure instead of just a fine.
That is a much more elegant solution in some ways. It does not require tracking individual license plates or building a massive database. It just uses a simple feedback loop to change behavior. I wonder if we could do that in Jerusalem.
I would love to see it. Imagine the intersection at King George and Jaffa Street. If everyone starts honking, the light just stays red forever. People would start yelling at each other to stop honking instead of honking at the light.
It would certainly be entertaining to watch. But on a serious note, the privacy concern Daniel raised is the biggest barrier. If we go the New York or Paris route, we are talking about a lot of cameras. And we already have a lot of cameras in Jerusalem for security reasons.
We do. And that is actually an interesting point. Could we use the existing infrastructure? Could we just add an acoustic layer to the cameras that are already there? From a cost perspective, it makes sense. But from a civil liberties perspective, it is a nightmare. It is what they call functional creep. You install a camera for one thing, and then you slowly add more and more capabilities until it is a total surveillance tool.
Exactly. And the thing about noise sensors is that they are, by definition, microphones. Even if they are designed to only pick up loud noises, the hardware is capable of picking up everything. Who has access to that audio? Is it encrypted? Is it being used for voice recognition?
There are ways to mitigate that. You can design the sensors so they only process high-frequency sounds, or you can use on-device processing where the raw audio never even leaves the unit. The AI only sends a notification if it detects a specific pattern, like a car horn. But you have to trust the people who build and manage the system.
And trust is in short supply these days. But let us look at the other side. What if we don't do anything? Daniel mentioned the police are understaffed and overwhelmed. If we don't use AI, we are essentially saying that noise pollution is legal. Because if there is no enforcement, the law doesn't really exist.
That is the reality right now. We have laws on the books in Israel that prohibit honking unless it is for an immediate danger, but they are completely ignored. It creates this sense of lawlessness that spills over into other things. If you can honk with impunity, why not double park? Why not run a yellow light? It erodes the social contract we were talking about.
It is a broken windows theory for noise. If the small stuff isn't enforced, the whole system starts to feel optional. So, what are the practical takeaways here? If someone like Daniel wants to advocate for a quieter Jerusalem, where should they start?
First, I think we need to reframe the conversation. We need to stop talking about noise as a nuisance and start talking about it as a health crisis. When you talk to city officials, use the data on cardiovascular disease and sleep fragmentation. That carries much more weight than just saying my neighbors are loud.
That is a great point. It is harder to ignore a public health issue than a quality-of-life complaint.
Second, we should look at pilot programs. We don't need to install ten thousand cameras tomorrow. We could start with one or two notorious intersections, like the ones Daniel mentioned. Use the Paris model—highly localized, highly transparent. Show the public that it works and that the privacy protections are in place.
And what about the tech itself? Are there any other cities that have done something interesting?
London has been testing noise sensors in the borough of Kensington and Chelsea. They have a huge problem with supercars revving their engines in residential areas at night. They used the sensors to identify the worst offenders and started impounding cars. That got people's attention real fast.
Impounding cars? Wow. That is a serious deterrent. I can imagine if some of the habitual honkers in our neighborhood had their cars taken away for a week, the streets would get quiet very quickly.
It is all about the stakes. Right now, the stakes for honking are zero. If you make the stakes high enough, behavior changes. And the AI just provides the consistency. A police officer might be having a bad day and ignore a honk, or they might be busy with a more serious crime. But the AI is always there. It is impartial. It doesn't get tired.
But that impartiality is also what scares people. There is no room for human judgment. What if you are honking to prevent an accident? Or what if you are in an emergency and need to get someone to the hospital?
That is where the human-in-the-loop comes in. In most of these systems, the AI flags the event, but a human officer reviews the footage before a ticket is actually sent out. That allows for context. If the video shows a pedestrian stepping into the street and the driver honking to warn them, the officer can just dismiss the violation.
Okay, that makes it feel a bit more reasonable. It is not just a cold machine handing out fines. It is a tool to help the police do their jobs more efficiently.
Exactly. It is about using AI to bridge the enforcement gap that Daniel mentioned. If the police are understaffed, give them tools that let them do the work of a hundred officers with just one person.
It feels like we are at a turning point. As our cities get more crowded and the technology becomes more affordable, we are going to have to make some tough choices. Do we want to live in a world that is quiet but heavily monitored, or a world that is loud and chaotic but more private?
I think there is a middle ground. We can use technology to enforce specific rules without creating a total surveillance state. It requires strong legislation, transparency, and a lot of public oversight. But the alternative—doing nothing and letting our health suffer—is not a good option either.
I agree. And honestly, after living through enough three a.m. honking sessions, I am starting to lean toward the jellyfish sensors. If it means I can get a full night's sleep, I might be okay with a camera on the corner that knows the difference between a car horn and a conversation.
I am right there with you. And for anyone listening who is dealing with this in their own city, it is worth looking up the work being done by Bruitparif in Paris or the noise pilot in New York. There is a lot of data out there that you can use to push your local government to take this seriously.
Definitely. This is one of those topics that seems small but actually affects millions of people. So thanks to Daniel for sending this in. It is a classic My Weird Prompts topic—something we see every day but rarely think about in this much depth.
It really is. And hey, if you are enjoying the show and these deep dives into the weird corners of our world, we would really appreciate it if you could leave us a review on your podcast app or on Spotify. It genuinely helps other people find the show and keeps us going.
Yeah, it makes a huge difference. You can also find us at our website, myweirdprompts.com, where we have a contact form if you want to send us your own weird prompts. We are always looking for new rabbit holes to jump into.
And you can follow us on Spotify to get every new episode as soon as it drops. We have been doing this for two hundred fifty-six episodes now, and we have no plans to stop anytime soon. There is always more to explore.
Well, this has been My Weird Prompts. I am Corn.
And I am Herman Poppleberry.
Thanks for listening, and hopefully, your neighborhood is a little quieter than ours tonight.
Until next time!
Let's hope the honking stops before the episode ends.
I wouldn't bet on it, Corn. I wouldn't bet on it.
Fair enough. See you all next week.
Goodbye everyone!
This has been My Weird Prompts. You can find us on Spotify and at myweirdprompts.com. Thanks for listening!
