Saskatoon retrofits fleet so residents can get a good night’s sleep Feb 13, 2020 5:09 PM

SASKATOON — It’s not quite the sound of silence, but residents of Saskatoon might sleep more peacefully now that the city has replaced backup alarms on some of its maintenance vehicles.

The city says the conventional, high-pitched “beep, beep beep” of the alarms can be disturbing — especially at night when a lot of snow-clearing, road-repair and street-sweeping equipment operates.

Noise complaints from residents led the city to put in new “white noise” backup alarms on 17 maintenance vehicles.

The new alarms emit a pulsing “psssht-psssht” sound directed at the rear of the equipment.