Quote:
Originally Posted by kkim
MC,
I'm not saying you "have" to listen to the message... like I said, do what you want. As long as you're making an informed decision, it's not my ears that will suffer.
lol... you're me, 30-40 yrs ago. 
I wish some crusty, old fart had tried to tell me that my hearing would suffer due to constant exhaust fan noise from the equipment in the radar tower I was assigned to, but back then, no one in the shop wore ear plugs, let alone had studies that showed we would lose our hearing from the constant, high pitched whistling fans. Even if someone did, I wouldn't have listened, cause my hearing was perfect back then. Today, I suffer from high frequency hearing loss. I now know what caused it and even if I don't have much to protect anymore, I wear earplugs when I ride to protect what it is I have left. If only I had listened to people earlier.... but I didn't, so here I am, trying to prevent others from hearing loss due to wind noise from helmets.
I understand that we can disagree and still be civil... that's what makes this site so special. You have read what others have said in this thread and the choice is yours on how to use that information... earplugs or no earplugs. My hope is that others who read this thread will gain something from my plight and learn from mistakes I've made.  |
Yeah, I'm sure I'll have to pay for my sucky decisions later on, but at least I'm edumacated.
No one in this shop wears ear plugs, ether. I'm the youngest there and there's a couple of guys in their 20's, a few in their 30's, and everyone else is around 45-65. No one wears ear plugs, and all of the old guys are hard of hearing in the shop. It's weird though, if it's not in the shop, they can hear just fine, about as well as anyone else their age.
I have a theory to why they can hear: we have 2 breaks in the 10 hour work day (4 day week.
), we have to go to the back for material a lot and/or saw it up, when material comes in, someone has to get on a fork lift and put it where it goes and sign a bazillion papers, and we are all guys that mess around (maybe a little too much) so we're not always 2' from the machine we're working at. And the walls absorb the vibrations and we keep the garage/walk through doors open (except in the winter). It's actually quieter than the shop I used to work in, substantially.
I know what you mean by "civil," there's a lot of people who would have been like: "Hey you @$$#3@&!!! @#%@#$in listen to me you little %$&^!!!" but no one seems to do that here.
I actually hope that I'm the only one that doesn't wear ear plugs on here, I know it's bad for anyone. My ears aren't invincible, they ring if I work a good 12 hour day or ride for 5 days with no ear plugs. And it sucks. So I wear them on the way to a place to ride.
I think I'm going to need some when I change my exhaust though. I mean, it will be substantially louder.
WEAR EAR PLUGS!!!