why are LA garbage trucks so loud! (Los Angeles, Santa Monica: home, neighborhoods)

[hbhb]

Is it just me or does LA have the world's most ridiculously loud garbage trucks? I've lived in Manhattan, Bronx, Brooklyn, Philadelphia and Boston. Never in the back of buildings, always up front, facing the street just feet away from the curb and I've never been bothered or rarely even heard the garbage trucks. I move to Los Angeles, into a super quiet neighborhood and just get destroyed once a week at 7AM clockwork. It's like there's a monster truck demolition derby going on outside. I imagine if transformers were real this is what it would sound like when they fight.

I tried doing a search online and apparently nobody seems to find these automatic trucks with the claw to be a nuisance. The hydraulics or whatever it is of that claw grabbing the trash can and dumping it is deafening and I'm nowhere near the curb! I can only imagine what it must sound like if you are.

Am I crazy? Am I the only one that cant handle this?

[BRinSM]

Originally Posted by hbhb

I imagine if transformers were real this is what it would sound like when they fight.

HAHAHA!!!! You just made my morning.

As to your question, I have no idea. Luckily for me, I'm always gone for work when the garbage trucks come around. They are loud though, but I figured it was the same everywhere.

[heydade]

that sounds like bulk pick up...they come once a month here in South Florida to pick up larger items or large mounds of debris. Again, only once a month here. And yes, those large claws hitting the pavement are like artillery shells going off. Insane in the membrane !

[BacktoBlue]

Originally Posted by hbhb

It's like there's a monster truck demolition derby going on outside. I imagine if transformers were real this is what it would sound like when they fight.

LOL This made me laugh!

[Charles]

Not only are they load, the patters the trucks follow ensure there is no end. (At least they are CNG now, no more fumes.)

Typical truck pattern

Trash truck up one side of the street

then 20 minutes later

Recycled truck up one side of the street

then 30 minutes later

Lawn/green waste truck up on side of the street

then 15 minutes later

trash truck down the other side of the street

then 20 minutes later

Recycled truck down the other side of the street

then 10 minutes later

Green/yard waste truck down the other side of the street.

So, you get to hear the engines and air brakes and banging and back up beeps six different times.


After that one house's gardner comes with mowers, weed whackers and blowers

then an hour later

an other house's gardener comes.

It's tough being a stay at home mom.

[BluSpark]

Our passenger bus fleet runs on natural gas which makes them pretty loud.

I wonder if the garbage trucks do too...??

[Charles]

Originally Posted by BluSpark

Our passenger bus fleet runs on natural gas which makes them pretty loud.

I wonder if the garbage trucks do too...??

Some are CNG but I don't think that makes them louder - just cleaner.

[1200RT]

Our trucks in Santa Monica are loud as well.

Its my guess that the noise difference comes with the differences in trash collection here, versus where you've lived in the past. The east coast cities you mentioned usually have smaller "personal" style trash bins. Its been awhile since i've had to take out trash in Manhattan, but I don't think they use the trucks that "lift" the trash can. This is probably what makes ours so loud.

[Lovehound]

Originally Posted by hbhb

Is it just me or does LA have the world's most ridiculously loud garbage trucks?

...

Am I crazy? Am I the only one that cant handle this?

You are crazy. You can't handle the truth!!!

Could it be that your LA neighborhood is quieter than your old neighborhoods, and that the trucks are louder only by contrast with the usual quiet?

[415_s2k]

Originally Posted by BluSpark

Our passenger bus fleet runs on natural gas which makes them pretty loud.

I wonder if the garbage trucks do too...??

I think most of them are diesel.

A lot of them are pretty old; those old Detroit Diesel engines last for decades, and well, LA does have a shortfall

When we first moved there, my ex and I were floored at how for all of LA's issues with air and all these measures in place to keep emissions down (I'm a tuner and so I had a blast trying to keep my car smogged and CHP-friendly with a GT40 turbo and rough-idling cams in there), they had trash trucks and school busses that spewed out a 20x30 foot cloud of soot whenever they went to accelerate.

It's kind of frustrating when you've got some surly cop telling you that your car that still gets 28mpg on the freeway and still passes emissions can't be registered because it has a few bolt-on parts when every morning, diesel fumes kill the remaining mourning doves and hummingbirds when the bus comes to pick up the kids.