As a seventeen year-old kid just freshly launched from the nest, I rented my first apartment in downtown Rome, New York. I had chosen the place based mostly on its affordability, but also on its proximity to my swing-shift job and my girlfriend’s house, and on the availability of off-street parking for the jalopy that got me to and from all three. My very own assigned parking spot was perfect – it was right outside my ground-floor bedroom in the long, dead-end alley that ran alongside the apartment building from the city street out front, ending about 30 feet or so beyond my window where 20 metal trash cans were haphazardly arranged with big, white numbers sloppily painted on their lids and again on their dented sides - one for each of the 20 apartments in the 5-story brick walk-up.
I slept soundly in my new adolescent digs, secure in the knowledge that my transportation was just the other side of the wall, until the morning of what I think was the third day. What I am certain of is that, regardless of whether it was the third day or the fourth, it was at an obscenely early hour when a municipal garbage truck roared its way past my window to the treasure trove of trash it knew it would find at the end of the alley. The truck’s human tender then dismounted and methodically dumped the contents of those 20 metal cans into the hungry truck’s grumbling belly, punctuating each with the chaotic clatter of the numbered lid hitting the pavement first, followed by the hollow, rolling bellow of the similarly numbered but now empty can itself hitting the pavement and its brethren cans.
Over the next several months, I learned that I could just barely manage to cling to the ragged edge of sleep through all of this from beneath two pillows bunched tightly about my ears. But nothing… and I mean NOTHING could filter or deflect the surgically piercing stiletto of that ultra-sonic back-up alarm as the truck, now satiated, indiscreetly belched and beeped its way from the end of the alley, past my window to the street where, beeping and beeping and beeping, it waited for a blessed break in the early morning traffic.
I, too, despise back-up beepers, or any beeping that I can’t turn off immediately. I realize they have a function, and I won’t begrudge that, but still… :mad:
To take this beyond the annoying to the utterly stupid, my husband’s Prius has a back up beeper. That is not audible outside of the car. Thank you so frickin’ much, Toyota. I put the damn car in reverse - I know I’m backing up.
I heard a car in the KMart parking lot yesterday with a backup beeper, clearly audible. All I could figure is that the driver (who appeared to be just this side of doddering, or maybe just past the other side) needs it to know which direction he’s going in?
And recently when we were visiting a casino I rented a scooter since I’m getting my knee replaced next month and in the meantime I can barely walk. The stupid thing had the loudest backup beeper I have ever heard in my life. Every time I’d put it in reverse, every person within 20 feet of me would jump and turn around to look at me. Over all the regular casino noise.
My scooter doesn’t have a beeper, but I have seen (and heard!) ones that do. I know what you mean. However, I’ve had several people suggest I really should get a backup beeper put on my scooter and my wheelchair. Maybe I really am a maniac. (my answer to comments that I should put a backup beeper on my wheelchair is usually that I think I’ll put nice pointy spikes on the handles instead).
I just invented an improved one, not from the OP’s point of view, but from the car owners. Instead of a beep, it shouts obscenities and makes gunfire noises. “Get away from the car! I got you this time!”
One of our neighbours has a backup warning system on their car. But it’s not a beeper. It’s this terrible, obnoxious faux-american accented woman going “WARNING, THIS CAR IS BACKING UP! WARNING, THIS CAR IS BACKING UP!”
And the thing is that it’s not a new, flashy car. It’s not an import. It’s an early-mid '90s AU Ford Station Wagon. So the warning system didn’t come stock.
At the start of my freshman year of college I quickly discovered that the dining hall’s supply doors was about thirty feet down and twenty feet away from my window. They began serving breakfast at 7… So 5:30 rolls around and BEEPBEEPBEEP. Then 6:30 rolls around and BEEPBEEPBEEP the garbage truck rolls up to pick up the previous day’s trash. My roommate woke up laughing his ass off when I snapped and started screaming at the earliest truck from the window (Thankfully I don’t think the driver could hear me from the cab… I would’ve felt worse than I did later).
Eventually the problem solved itself… Fall (and cold) came and the window could be closed at night.
A couple of years ago, my mother insisted that my father install such a device on his car. I had moved back in with my parents, and was being encouraged to park behind Dad in the driveway. Mom was worried about a crunch between the two cars. So we went to Wal-mart or someplace and bought one. Dad installed it.
No big deal. Except that the beep is obnoxiously loud, and, as it got colder, the beeps got much more continuous–regardless of the location of the theoretical unseen obstacle. Something happened which caused Dad to disconect the sensor–might have been taking car in for repairs, I’m not sure. He disconnected it and has refused to reconnect it since.
To be honest, I don’t know. I have never noticed the beeps getting closer together when I was backing out of a parking spot, but I’ll have to experiment and check.
If any car needed an external back-up alarm, it would be a Prius. When you are backing up the car is on battery only and it is silent. I’ve had people nearly walk out in front of me driving at low speeds on battery only because they didn’t hear the car and didn’t look.
Was watching “Grey’s Anatomy” the other night and learned of wax earplugs. Had never heard of them before, only the cheezy, worthless foam type they give away at NASCAR events. If only…
As someone who recently was nearly run over in the grocery store’s parking lot by some moron in an SUV, I wish all vehicles had back-up beepers. The idiot was backing their land barge out of a parking space, not paying attention to what they were doing, and I happened to be facing the other way, loading groceries in the car.
(my answer to comments that I should put a backup beeper on my wheelchair is usually that I think I’ll put nice pointy spikes on the handles instead).