Driving with Headphones - Page 12

Driving at night with your lights off and eyes closed?

Quote:

Originally Posted by ace5000 

Driving at night with your lights off and eyes closed?

Sounds like an excellent idea!

Sent to me by the OP - SUMFLOW in a PM:

 "You seem like an intelligent guy who wears cheap one-speaker earphones.  Why don’t you run an experiment and see for yourself why Formula 1 drivers wear earplugs.  And why the deaf are allowed to drive."

OK, where do I  start?

 The Earphone shown is from the early 60's I've saved since I was a kid. I thought it would be interesting to show how far we have come with the technology. The OP seems to have taken my difference of opinion personally. So sad… This is after all, a "forum" where I am able, as a member, to express my opinion to an open question. I have done so. I don't believe it is safe for one's self or others, under any circumstances.

Yes, I understand deaf people can drive, and expensive cars are quiet... bla bla bla.

I'm not a Formula One driver, but I put many city, highway, and country road miles on a year in all kinds of weather. If I was a race car driver, I would probably wear “noise limiting” ear plugs to prevent damage to my ears, but am still able discern what's going on around me. Perhaps that is what they actually wear and not, “earplugs.” I don't know for sure, but it makes sence to me.

I’m not sure what kind of “experiment” the OP had in mind… His “private” message makes no sense to me. But, then again, neither does the premise of this thread…LOL.

Allow me to close my post with an equally confounding question:

Is playing Russian Roulette unsafe?

Happy Holidays! 

Quote:

Originally Posted by ace5000 

I'm not a Formula One driver, but I put many city, highway, and country road miles on a year in all kinds of weather. If I was a race car driver, I would probably wear “noise limiting” ear plugs to prevent damage to my ears, but am still able discern what's going on around me. Perhaps that is what they actually wear and not, “earplugs.” I don't know for sure, but it makes sence to me.

 

snip...

 

Allow me to close my post with an equally confounding question:

Is playing Russian Roulette unsafe?

What do you mean by "noise limiting".  There is no magic earplug that blocks all sound from your perception.  All earplugs are "noise limiting" to one degree or another.  I doubt you're referring to the hunter/shooter type since the constant drone or engine and wind noise would either mean they'd be shut all the time (if that's even possible) making the auto on/off feature useless or the threshold would be so high they'd never activate for anything short of an explosion and you'd get hearing damage anyway.  The only other type I can think of are the musician/concert-goer flat FR style, but that has little to nothing to do with reducing wind or engine noise.

In a quiet room I can hear people talking over my SE530s and through my music and I can have a conversation with them after pausing.  I only need my PTH if the person is unusually quiet or if there's a lot of background noise.  Even IEMs don't mystically make you completely unaware of your surroundings or unable to hear anything.

And on Russian Roulette...

It depends how many chambers there are.  Six?  Unsafe.  Six-hundred-thousand?  Pretty safe.

Deaf people are actually safer drivers than jokers like us wearing headphones, because of a phenomenon called sensory substitution, which is the brain's way of attempting to compensate for the loss of one sense (hearing in this case) by enhancing others (mainly vision for driving):

"Brain plasticity is the brain’s ability to adapt to the complete absence or the deterioration of a sense. Sensory substitution is therefore most likely explained through the study of brain plasticity. Cortical re-mapping or reorganization takes place when the brain experiences some sort of deterioration. This is an evolutionary mechanism that allows people with the deprivation of a sense to adapt and compensate by using other senses. Functional imaging of congenitally blind patients showed a cross-modal recruitment of the occipital cortex during the realization perceptual tasks such as Braille reading, tactile perception, tactual object recognition, sound localization, and sound discrimination.^[4] This shows that blind people can use their occipital lobe, generally used for vision, to perceive objects though the use of other sensory modalities, which would explain their oft-displayed propensity towards increased strength of the other senses."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensory_substitution#Brain_plasticity

Your example is going the wrong way.  Plasticity may increase your visual acuity if you're deaf, but that increase won't be nearly as huge as when it goes the other way.  Vision is already our primary sense and IIRC nearly half of your brain is dedicated to it. (Link me if I'm wrong, I'm not in the mood for research right now.)  Re-dedicating such a large portion of your brain to another task is sure to bring an improvement, but even re-dedicating all of the smaller percentage of your brain used for hearing to the much larger part used for vision won't yield the same results.

I doubt it will help with any of the perceptual faults that often lead to accidents anyway.  (I can't find a link to the story of the guy who hit a cow because he thought he was hallucinating it, but its worth mentioning it.)  It may improve accuracy, but doesn't seem like it will change the fundamentals of the game.

High-Fidelity Earplugs

ETY•Plugs™ are the world’s highest fidelity non-custom earplugs. They reduce most noise to safe levels while preserving the clarity of speech and the richness of music. ETY•Plugs are configured to replicate the natural response of the ear canal so that when sound enters the earplug, it is reproduced unchanged, exactly the same as the ear would hear it, only quieter.

These natural sound plugs are one of the best for musicians and music lovers, reducing volume by over 50% with almost no distortion. The triple flange design fits most teens and adults. Carry case included.

http://www.etymotic.com/ephp/er20.html

BlastBuster Shooter's Plugs

These plugs are similar to E-A-R Ultrafit but with the addition of a sound channel with an embedded acoustic resistance device that lets you hear voice volume sounds clearly, while greatly reducing the volume of dangerously loud noises.

Quote:

Originally Posted by grokit 

Deaf people are actually safer drivers than jokers like us wearing headphones, because of a phenomenon called sensory substitution, which is the brain's way of attempting to compensate for the loss of one sense (hearing in this case) by enhancing others (mainly vision for driving):

 

"Brain plasticity is the brain’s ability to adapt to the complete absence or the deterioration of a sense. Sensory substitution is therefore most likely explained through the study of brain plasticity. Cortical re-mapping or reorganization takes place when the brain experiences some sort of deterioration. This is an evolutionary mechanism that allows people with the deprivation of a sense to adapt and compensate by using other senses. Functional imaging of congenitally blind patients showed a cross-modal recruitment of the occipital cortex during the realization perceptual tasks such as Braille reading, tactile perception, tactual object recognition, sound localization, and sound discrimination.^[4] This shows that blind people can use their occipital lobe, generally used for vision, to perceive objects though the use of other sensory modalities, which would explain their oft-displayed propensity towards increased strength of the other senses."

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensory_substitution#Brain_plasticity

They may be more cognizant visually but can they tell the difference in silver/gold wire with rhodium plugs? We have that on our side.

Personally I think the only thing a driver should be doing when driving is.. Driving!

In my former life in the UK one of the things I used to do was teach advanced driving courses both motorcycle, car and truck. With ever increasing traffic we need our whits about us at all times and wearing headphones seriously increases the chance of us not paying attention or hearing emergency vehicles which are probably on their way to cut another idiot out of their vehicle due to inattentive driving!

I remember one of my old advanced instructors who taught me was a Police motorway driver. I once asked him what he thought the greatest safety feature was in a car and he replied if he had a choice it would be a six inch spike sticking out of the steering wheel! These days of advanced safety features whilst wonderful in many ways increase complacency I feel!

Most accidents are anything but, they are preventable if drivers payed attention to the task at hand. I remember the above mentioned police officer reckoning around 90% of so-called accidents were not accidents but inattentive driving habits!

I find it worse in North America where driving is treated as a right rather than a privilege as it is in the UK..Or at least it used to be to taught that way when I was instructing.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ace5000 

 

High-Fidelity Earplugs

ETY•Plugs™ are the world’s highest fidelity non-custom earplugs. They reduce most noise to safe levels while preserving the clarity of speech and the richness of music. ETY•Plugs are configured to replicate the natural response of the ear canal so that when sound enters the earplug, it is reproduced unchanged, exactly the same as the ear would hear it, only quieter.

These natural sound plugs are one of the best for musicians and music lovers, reducing volume by over 50% with almost no distortion. The triple flange design fits most teens and adults. Carry case included.

http://www.etymotic.com/ephp/er20.html

 

BlastBuster Shooter's Plugs

These plugs are similar to E-A-R Ultrafit but with the addition of a sound channel with an embedded acoustic resistance device that lets you hear voice volume sounds clearly, while greatly reducing the volume of dangerously loud noises.

So...which one did you mean, and why would it better than a standard earplug when you're driving?

My 2 cents re driving with headphones,

Motorbikes are small and can move quickly into your blind spot, and you might miss it in your mirror. If you have earphones on, you wont hear its loud engine (which how i normally know bikes are around me)

Quote:

Originally Posted by flipfire 

My 2 cents re driving with headphones,

 

Motorbikes are small and can move quickly into your blind spot, and you might miss it in your mirror. If you have earphones on, you wont hear its loud engine (which how i normally know bikes are around me)

With a good luxury car, you won't hear it either. Just putting that out there.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MaxwellDemon 

Quote:

Originally Posted by flipfire 

My 2 cents re driving with headphones,

 

Motorbikes are small and can move quickly into your blind spot, and you might miss it in your mirror. If you have earphones on, you wont hear its loud engine (which how i normally know bikes are around me)

With a good luxury car, you won't hear it either. Just putting that out there.

well, that's why we've got bikes with louder and louder exhaust pipes, because "noise saves lives'

Quote:

Originally Posted by buffalowings 

well, that's why we've got bikes with louder and louder exhaust pipes, because "noise saves lives'

I'll just say that living in HK... there is almost no cars that allows noise to be leaked from the outside. Except for sirens, that's the only thing that will cut through the isolation barrier of a luxury car.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MaxwellDemon 

Quote:

Originally Posted by buffalowings 

well, that's why we've got bikes with louder and louder exhaust pipes, because "noise saves lives'

I'll just say that living in HK... there is almost no cars that allows noise to be leaked from the outside. Except for sirens, that's the only thing that will cut through the isolation barrier of a luxury car.

right...in a lot of asian countries, you're either extremely wealthy (able to afford luxury cars) or not well off enough to afford a car, correct me if I'm wrong