The Aesthetics of Police Sirens

NYT
June 15, 2007
Earsplitting Symphony, With the Maestro in Blue
By CARA BUCKLEY

There is the yelp, an electronic yodel that grabs attention at intersections or kicks off chases. There is the wail, more traditional; it sounds like the windup police sirens of yore. There is the “ hi-lo,” dubbed the “European” siren by some, because it evokes the police chases seen — and heard — in French and Italian films.

The air-horn siren works well, officers say, for clearing intersections of pedestrians and getting the attention of speeding drivers. And the fast, or priority, siren sounds like an asteroid blaster from an old video game, and feels like a jackhammer assault on the ears.

That is the menu of sirens available to New York City police officers, each one making a specific impression, each at an officer’s fingertips. The sirens allow officers to choose sounds with a personal touch, like the conductors of a screeching, sound-bending orchestra.

And there is something new. Christened with a tantalizing name, the Rumbler, it sends out low, bone-rattling vibrations, so it is not only heard, but also felt. One has been tested on the streets of New York, but the jury is out on whether it is effective, offensive or terrifying.

Taken together, the sirens of the Police Department provide a remarkable — as well as cacophonous — audio record of policing today.

Every time you hear that distinct and invasive wail, which may not technically be a wail, chances are the police officer behind it has made a deliberate, even aesthetic choice.

The decision is wholly subjective; there are no guidelines. Officers are simply told to mix the sirens up.

On a recent spin around Manhattan, up the Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive and then down the West Side Highway, Officer Spiros Komis, who has been with the highway patrol for 20 years, offered up an aural palette of what sirens he uses, and when. What would he do if he were chasing a speeding driver?

“I go through the whole mode,” he said, his fingers hovering above a dash-mounted keyboard that controls a police car’s lights and sounds.

“But I might start with a wail,” he said, pressing a button. The air filled with a familiar nasal drone. “And then I’d go to a constant yelp,” he said, and the car began bleating. A red Acura driving ahead promptly pulled right, into the center lane, its driver nervously checking his speed. “Then I’d give a little bit of the air horn; I’d give it a little toot,” he said, and gave it a little toot.

“Most highway officers hit the air horn,” he said. A gray Toyota RAV4 that had taken the Acura’s place ahead of the squad car quickly swung out of the way, too, as its driver stared fixedly ahead. The car in front of the RAV4, a gray Volvo, also pulled out of the way.

“Like a hot knife through butter,” Officer Komis said, satisfied.

But sometimes sirens have no effect, no matter what they sound like.

“Elderly people are trickier,” Officer Komis said. “You might need to pull out the public address system. And an individual attempting to flee is not going to respond to anything.”

New York officers face stiff competition from other sounds, and few people are more accustomed to a constant assault on the ears than New Yorkers. Wearers of iPods are cocooned behind personal walls of sound, and drivers are snug inside hermetically sealed luxury cars.

Summer presents its own challenges: Car windows are up, air-conditioners blast and music usually does, too. Then there are cellphones, the near-constant honking of horns and all the other sirens: fire trucks, ambulances and so on.

“You live in New York, there’s too many sirens,” said Lt. Luis Perez, the commanding officer of the Police Department’s driver education and training unit. “We just hear too much.”

Police departments began using manual windup sirens early in the last century, and models with electrical motors around the Depression years. In the early 1970s, manufacturers introduced sirens with different patterns and frequencies, to address a growing problem: Officers in different police cars using the same frequency often could not hear each other when approaching the same intersection, a dreaded phenomenon known as the wash-out effect that is a recipe for a crash. The yelp, the wail, the fast and the hi-lo sirens were born.

During their four-day drivers’ training courses, police recruits are taught the importance of mixing up sirens. New police officers also tend to overestimate the power their sirens have, said Officer Daniel Donza, a driver trainer.

Another trainer, Officer Paul Cacioppo, said, “You can never be visible enough or heard enough.” (Still, officers are not allowed to use the siren without good reason. If they do, they can lose vacation days.)

Now comes the Rumbler. Maybe.

To experience it is to feel a little earthquake beneath one’s feet.

Robert S. Martinez, director of the department’s fleet services unit, says the Rumbler has brought pedestrians and traffic to a dead stop every time he has tried out the test model. Departments in Alexandria, Va., and elsewhere in the Washington area already have Rumblers, according to Tom Morgan of Federal Signal, a leading siren supplier. It works like a bass-heavy boombox, sending out vibrations through two woofers.

But though the Rumbler is bound to grab the attention of even the most jaded New Yorker, it may frighten too many people, Mr. Martinez said.

“It’s debatable whether this would be good or bad for New York City,” he said. “You don’t want to hurt people’s ears. Even though it’s a lower decibel, it almost seems offensive.”