HAVE you ever heard an ambulance siren and wondered why it sounds different to the one you heard the day before?
Well, one paramedic has opened up about the different kinds of sirens on the emergency vehicles, revealing there’s actually three different options for different situations.
In an insider chat with LADbible, the paramedic explained that there’s the normal neenaw, the faster neenaw, neenaw and then the tritone siren.
And the reason they alternate through the three is to make ensure that people don’t tune it out.
“It’s known that if you play one siren repeatedly, people don’t hear it,” she explained.
“They switch off to it because you get so used to the sound, so we alternate between the three sirens.”
There’s also a “bullhorn” – which, as its name suggests, makes a “loud honking sound” – that’s found just to the side of the steering wheel.
“We use that in certain situations like heavy traffic or there’s a danger coming up, and we need to let people know if there’s something serious,” she said.
And asked what her favourite siren is to use, she replied: “Bullhorn, I love it!”
“Never knew that! Paramedic gives insider secrets…” LADbible captioned the video as they shared it on TikTok.
In the comments section, lots of people admitted they had no idea there were even different kinds of ambulance sirens.
“I never even knew there was multiple,” one wrote.
“Wait people can tune the siren out?” another marvelled.
“I’ve never noticed this,” a third said.
“No siren has a real meaning,” someone else wrote.
“They alternate them to make you take notice unless it’s the bullhorn.
“Then get out the way!”
“The 3 sirens have slightly different ranges and directions too.” another pointed out.
“So cycling through them can give people notice of an ambulance before they can see it, like at a blind junction or roundabout.”
As someone else said: “The long tone is travels further so is used when going quicker.
“Two tone is when your passing traffic at more close proximity and the third siren is a scatter for junctions.”
