Hearing more sirens during lockdown and beyond

[itsanotherdayinparadise]

Is it just me? I am hearing more sirens than ever- police, ambulances presumably. I first noticed it at the peak of covid 19 early to mid May. It really panicked and upset me. I worried that this was yet another neighbour affected. It may have been...
However. It's all the time. Even now. Woke me up at 7am this morning. I live on the suburbs of a town, so not city centre by all means.
The roads here are still very quiet, so sirens not necessary really I feel, as the emergency services can easily move at record breaking speed at all times.
Is there an official reason for this? Is it that there are no other cars on road so noise highlighted more, or have they been instructed to be noisier on purpose?
Or is it that there is (still) an incredible demand on the emergency services at the moment.
Maybe it's just me but the noises are unsettling. Three/four months ago there was no way I heard as many sirens...

Less noise in the streets and you are more aware of them now, so you hear them more.

Absolutely the same. I actually said this to DP today. Just heard one about five minutes ago actually

There were more ambulances for a couple of weeks up to Easter and then it calmed down again. In the absence of the constant throng of traffic I'm noticing every individual car and sounds of sirens travel further. It's just easier to notice the noise and it's more on your radar.

I'm noticing more planes, not because there are more, just that I notice out of novelty when one goes over.

I've heard more sirens and seen more ambulances.Not as much as at the peak here. But it's increasing again I'm sure.

We live near a fairly major road which gets its fair share of blue lights and I know what a normal level of sirens sounds like. There have definitely been more and I, too, concluded that it was policy.

In normal times an ambulance would pass by when you are driving down a road. At a bottle neck, when the ambulance couldn't get through, the siren came on then. Now the sirens are on regardless...
I think it's policy too...

Yes of course, it's policy and instructed to be noisier on purpose you're just more aware of it as the streets are quieter and you're home more

as the streets are quieter
The siren is a warning to other traffic to get out of the way. If the streets are quieter there should be less siren noise, not more. I can now hear them coming from about a mile away - they do not need to have a continuous siren on for that long a distance.

Our roads were full of sirens yesterday. Turns out there had been three separate road traffic accidents locally. I assume linked to more cars speeding.

Same here. It was quiet last two weeks but now started again.

I don’t think we can measure Coronavirus by the number of sirens reported by Mumsnet.

Our policy is that sirens should be used during daytime hours when members of the public can be expected to be on the roads/paths etc. We don't do it to annoy

With less traffic on the roads sirens are probably more useful. Usually traffic would act as a buffer almost, if you were proceeding ahead, you would notice other cars pulling over etc and be aware, rather than now where there's a chance an ambulance will come happily flying around the corner with no warning- aside from its sirens. They're bloody loud in the vehicles too, so they don't do it for fun.

Leoniemacaronie, has that always been your policy or have you been asked to make yourselves more visible/audible to the public just now? Obviously you aren't doing it for fun, and we appreciate the job you do, it's just that I'm hearing sirens from 7am in the morning on quiet roads devoid of traffic

I think it’s due to there being (generally) less traffic on the road. We’re a mile away from the train station and we never hear the trains. We can now. It’s really odd.

Yes definitely more whether they are ambulances or the police on their way to a gathering or something - I don't know and sometimes heard them in the middle of the night and at dawn which I found strange at the time as roads were deserted.

I have noticed and commented on this to various people too. I hear them several times a day at least.

Nope, live nearish to hospital and on a main route away from it so there is a lot of ambulance noise generally but it definitely seems to have dropped during lockdown, probably due to lack of traffic on the main road..

I do wonder if there may be some areas where sirens are being used more to account for increased pedestrians/cyclists on daily exercise who may be behaving erratically - stepping into the road to distance, avoiding touch button crossings etc.

Yes to hearing trains! I've never heard them where we are, as I said, main road, so generally lots of background traffic noise. We've been for evening walks a few times and have heard them several times.

Our policy is that if blue lights are on, our sirens should be on. Often we'll do a 'silent approach' if it's a burglary and we don't want to warn people, or we'll turn them off at night if possible, but it's against policy and if we were to have an accident we would be in serious trouble.

We certainly don't do it to annoy people!

I'm hearing a lot more here too weirdly

We used to live near a roundabout so heard loads and I work at a hospital (desk job) and noticed there were loads more ambulances during our peak with a noticeable drop off over recent weeks.

To be honest I would put it down to more people out and about generally who seem to have completely forgotten that roads will have moving vehicles on them. There’s been a few times people have been strolling down the middle of the road (presumably to distance) or getting to grips with their bikes oblivious to the cars around them.