Sitting in your yard, sipping a cold drink on a seemingly peaceful summer afternoon is what most homeowners would like to experience. Then comes the horror: that off-key melody played by the Ice Cream man over 22,000 times, until you can’t think anymore. Not only is it annoying, but also it’s actually been proven to fry brain cells.
In a study performed by Dr. Elmer Fedgeslicker, a psychiatrist and lead consultant, it was proven that: “Individuals who live within 300 feet of high ice cream truck density/volume regions were statistically four times more likely to have their reason spontaneously unseated than the national averages. This applied in all eleven countries we studied, with little regional variation.”
What they found was so astounding that Dr. Fedgeslicker remarked: “These things have to be stopped before an entire generation is lost to sound-induced paranoid schizophrenia.”
Volume has a lot to do with the capacity of the trucks to drive people mad. While some communities have limits on how long a driver can play his annoying tunes, others have decibel limits as well. The problem then becomes the sheer number of trucks that patrol any given neighborhood. In the village of Mastic Beach there are four different vendors patrolling the streets, causing one of the worst mash-ups of atonal music ever created.
What can one do about it? Talk with your local officials and make sure you’re heard during board meetings. A comparison of the noise level would also be helpful, such as, “I was out trimming my lawn and I could hear the Ice Cream man three blocks away over the whine of my weed wacker.” This will give them an idea of the decibel level that you are experiencing. An ordinance on noise levels might just stop the evil ice cream man from driving you insane.
http://www.avantnews.com/news/265135-study-finds-ice-cream-trucks-leading-cause-of-insanity