[technol0gic]

driving with headphones, especially noise-cancelling, is pretty concerning. you might be blocking an ambulance making lots of "annoying noise," (and yes, they do take the highway) so maybe invest in better seals for your doors and windows?

[HPsquared]

It's basically like driving a luxury car with lots of noise insulation and double glazing.

Everything is reduced by about 30 dB, especially low-frequency road and engine noise. Sirens etc are still perfectly audible as there is less background noise.

[tomjen3]

You can get a license when deaf, but to be honest my AirPods pro didn't dampen the sound as much as my current car does, so thats a red herring.

[dimva]

No, you won't be blocking the noise of an ambulance with noise-canceling headphones, that's not how noise-cancelling technology works. They only block persistent sounds, which an ambulance siren isn't as it changes pitch rapidly.

[logical_proof]

It's illegal to drive with headphones on let alone noise cancelling ones in many states. Some have exceptions for one earbud being in for phone calls. One notable state with no exceptions at all is of course California. See also Ohio, Maryland, Louisiana and more.

edit: this makes me wonder about deaf drivers... what is the intent of the law here?

[giancarlostoro]

What about a car horn? It feels insanely dangerous to use noise cancellation whilst driving.

[technol0gic]

I fully understand that noise canceling DSP algos lend themselves fully to inverting and muxing repetitive background noise like airplane noise, not sirens, but the callous, selfish effort to muffle the outside world when you're operating a multiple ton machine, often in close vicinity of other said machines, just because you don't like the sound, is problematic.