Q: I have an old car with broken air conditioning, and I’ve found that driving with the windows down hurts my ears (and I’m concerned with long-term hearing loss). I assume people with convertibles might suffer this same issue. Is it legal to wear earplugs while driving? And if so, do you recommend anything in particular?
A: Assuming you’re not willing to keep your windows up while driving (and I understand why you might not – a closed-up car on a summer day can get unbearably hot,) I feel like there’s not a perfect answer to this question. It’s a trade-off between long-term hearing loss and immediate driving safety.
Let’s start with hearing loss. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), which has a mandate to protect workers, has set some limits for noise exposure. You’ve reached your daily allowance of noise if you’re exposed to 85 decibels for eight hours. And for each three-decibel increase in volume, your exposure time should be cut in half. Go beyond those limits and you’re risking hearing damage. Washington law requires employees to wear ear protection at 85 decibels and louder.
What does that mean in real life? A normal conversation is about 60 decibels. Your coffee grinder is around 70-80. Your blender might be 90 or more. Driving with your windows down, or in a convertible, peaks at somewhere around 85 to 90 decibels; potentially loud enough to cause hearing loss on extended drives.
Wearing earplugs would help with excessive wind noise, but is that legal? And even if it’s legal, is it a good idea? There are several states where it’s clearly illegal to wear earplugs while driving, but I can’t find any prohibition in Washington. Our state doesn’t allow driving with headsets or earphones that are capable of playing an audio signal and muffle other sounds, but that law doesn’t mention earplugs.
Recognize though, that wearing earplugs is a compromise. You’re protecting your hearing but giving up the ability to hear sounds that can alert you to a driving hazard. One might counter that deaf drivers have a safety record similar to hearing drivers, and that’s true, but hearing drivers haven’t honed their other senses to offset a lack of hearing. For example, a 2010 study found that deaf adults have better peripheral vision than those who can hear.
If you’re going to wear hearing protection, follow the wisdom of motorcycle riders. For them, hearing damage is a real concern; many wear earplugs specially designed to selectively filter wind noise while still allowing them to hear sirens, horns, and even conversations. You don’t need to block out sounds entirely, just minimize the ones that are potentially harmful.
I have to give you credit for thinking about the future of your ears; we humans tend to discount long-term consequences (in this case, hearing damage) over near-term risks (like driving). But driving is the most dangerous activity most of us will engage in on a regular basis. If you protect your hearing at the expense of a missed audible warning and end up in a serious crash, your long-term hearing might not be so important anymore.
Having said all that, we don’t have an epidemic of earplug-involved crashes. If I were faced with the option of merging onto a highway full of earplugged drivers or a highway full of impaired, distracted, or speeding drivers the choice would be easy. Fortunately, high-risk drivers are a minority, but those risky behaviors have an outsized impact. Being thoughtful about our driving choices goes a long way to increased safety for all road users.