Rumbler: New Hi-Tech NYPD Sirens Can Be Felt, Sound Can Penetrate Car Doors, Be Heard Over iPods & Cell Phones (video)
Posted By Vicki McClure Davidson on February 27, 2011
NYPD vehicles will soon be equipped with new state-of-the-art sirens that can penetrate car doors and get the attention of New York drivers
Ready to rumble in the Big Apple?
A new hi-tech police siren, the Rumbler, is expected to be more effective than standard sirens because of the mix of low frequencies it emits. The new siren being launched in New York is reported to be more effective in penetrating through vehicle doors (even with the windows rolled up) and buildings, and will be heard and its vibrations felt by distracted drivers and people who are listening to their iPods with headphones or ear buds in or having cell phone conversations.
While the new siren has been determined safe for people’s hearing, some are skeptical.
From CBS New York, NYPD Getting Ready To Rumble With New Siren:
The New York City Police Department is getting ready to rumble.
The NYPD is planning to outfit all its new cars with a state-of-the-art siren, dubbed “The Rumbler.”
The system uses woofers to emit powerful bass sound along with a screeching siren. The result is a sound pedestrians can feel as well as hear.
There are about 150 police vehicles equipped with the Rumbler on the street. Soon enough, 5,000 police vehicles are expected to be equipped with it.
Tulsa, Oklahoma and other police departments across the country are also considering installing the Rumbler siren.
Associated Press, New Police Siren Makes Motorists Shake
From The Village Voice, The Rumbler Vibration Siren Coming to New York City:
The NYPD has announced “the Rumbler,” a new siren for cop cars designed to alert “even the most distracted cellphone-yakking, text-messaging or headphone-addled pedestrian or motorist,” according to the New York Post. That is what we need! Louder streets. It can supposedly cut through the ubiquitous sound of horns and travel for up to 200 feet. So far, 25 have already been tested in lower Manhattan, with another 132 coming tomorrow. The Rumbler works for 10 seconds at a time, for when police need a little added burst in addition to their five existing siren settings.
On its website, Federal Signal Corp., who makes the Rumbler, boasts about its skill at “shaking solid materials, allowing vehicle operators and nearby pedestrians to FEEL the sound waves and perhaps even see their effects through a shaking rearview mirror.” The CAPS are there for impact.
Reported by Ariel Kaminer at New York Times, The New Police Siren: You’ll Feel It Coming:
Joe Bader tried setting the two tones of his invention four notes apart on the musical scale, but the result sounded like music, not a siren. Same thing when he played around with a five-note interval. But when he set the two tones apart by two octaves and gave the siren a test run outside the Florida Highway Patrol headquarters in Tallahassee, the effect was so attention-grabbing that people came streaming out of the building to see what the strange sound, with its unfamiliar vibrations, could possibly be.
Which was precisely what Mr. Bader, a vice president at the security firm Federal Signal Corporation, was going for: a siren that would make people sit up and take notice — even people accustomed to hearing sirens all the time. Even people wearing ear buds or talking on the phone. Even people insulated from street noise by a layer of glass and steel. Even New Yorkers.
Rumblers, as Mr. Bader called his invention, achieve their striking effect with a low-frequency tone, in the range of 180 to 360 hertz (between the 33rd and the 46th key on a standard piano keyboard), which penetrates hard surfaces like car doors and windows better than a high tone does. When it is paired with the wail of a standard siren, the effect is hard to ignore — like the combination of a bagpipe’s high chanter and low drone, or perhaps like a train whistle and the caboose that moves that whistle through space.
Following the lead of some other municipalities, the New York Police Department gave the devices two limited test runs beginning in 2007. It liked what it heard, with the result that a Rumbler will be coming soon to a police car near you — perhaps one speeding right at you in a high-speed chase through traffic- and pedestrian-clogged streets. And eventually to about 5,000 of the department’s more than 8,000 vehicles.
Some New Yorkers have already raised concerns that the Rumbler’s low-frequency vibration could be injurious to their health. The Police Department insists that there is nothing to worry about and invited me to experience the effect for myself. But when Officer Joe Gallagher, a department spokesman, considered the fact that I am in what used to be known as “a family way,” he suggested that I not actually ride in a Rumbler-equipped squad car. “I don’t want you sitting in the back and going into childbirth,” he said. “I’m not handy with that.”
I’m not so handy with it either, so I rode in Officer Gallagher’s car while Officers Jeff Donato and Matthew Powlett of the 10th Precinct drove ahead of us, Rumbling as they went.
We zoomed up the Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive on what appeared to be the only day in recent history that it was free of traffic. When at last we did encounter at least a few other cars, the officers in the front car flipped on the Rumbler, switching among its sound effects: the wail, the yelp, the hi-lo, the fast stutter.
The Rumbler is no louder than a standard siren. In fact, it’s quieter — 10 decibels lower, which translates to only half the volume. But because low-frequency sound waves penetrate cars better than those at a higher pitch, drivers experience the Rumbler as much louder than a standard siren. That’s good news for pedestrians who might prefer not to be deafened, though not necessarily for the officers in Rumbler-equipped cars. To spare the officers’ ears, the device cuts off after eight seconds.
But the officers who demonstrated it for me said they had used it in repeated intervals for longer durations. And though Federal Signal describes the Rumbler as an “intersection-clearing device,” the officers also recounted using it while zipping up long stretches of highway. “It’s like the Red Sea parting,” Capt. Christopher Ikone said.
Low-frequency sound can have physical effects, like making you feel queasy. Enough, in fact, to be of interest to some weapons manufacturers, but their experiments take place at much lower frequencies and much higher amplification than the Rumbler employs. In fact, despite the siren’s name, the rumbling effect is subtle — far less than what you experience when an Escalade rolls up beside you at a stop light, tinted windows lowered, custom speakers blaring and thunder bass thumping.
From GovPro:
Rumblers were installed in about 150 NYPD fleet vehicles as part of a pilot program in 2009. This summer, fleet crews will install the sirens in about 500 cruisers. Eventually about 5,000 vehicles in the NYPD vehicle fleet will be equipped with them. The agency buys about 1,300 new cars for its fleet each year.
University Park, Ill.-based Federal Signal, maker of the Rumbler, says that the system produces penetrating, vibrating, low frequency sound waves. The system interacts with most 100/200-watt siren amplifiers and provides secondary, low frequency duplicate tones. Low frequency tones can penetrate solid materials, ensuring that vehicle operators and nearby pedestrians feel the sound waves.
The Rumbler system senses the primary siren tone signal and reduces the signals’ frequency by 75 percent. It then amplifies the sound through a pair of high-output woofers. The system’s timer allows the tone to sound for eight seconds, providing effective warning at hazardous intersections, and then automatically shuts off.
A Rumbler intersection-clearing system consists of an amplifier, with built-in timer and two subwoofers. Fleet managers order vehicle-specific mounting hardware separately. The system can be paired with most 100/200-watt emergency siren amplifiers.
Pasadena, Calif.’s police DWI Task Force is retrofitting task force vehicles with the Rumbler, and new ones will come equipped with it, according to Pasadena police Lt. John Dombrowa, who oversees the Pasadena Police Department’s vehicle fleet.
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