A group of firemen in New Jersey and New York are suing the manufacturer of sirens mounted on their trucks, because they are so loud that they are literally (yes, I used the word correctly) deafening. They accuse the manufacturer of not making the sirens safer.

Wait… what??

Aren’t sirens supposed to be loud?

Ok, maybe it would help if there was some padding or something that deflected the sound away from the cab.

The firemen want $150,000 each for compensation for irreversible hearing loss.

Seems to me that there are some relatively inexpensive and fairly low-tech solutions to the problem that could have been applied by the firemen themselves. For instance, don’t they all wear helmets? How much would it cost to install sound-deflecting flaps on those helmets? A dollar, maybe? I certainly would have gone to some effort to protect my hearing.

Oh, wait… we’re talking about New Jersey and New York. Places that elect entitlement-oriented nanny-state politicians like Christie and Bloomberg.

Nevermind.