What/where is that whistle on the street?!

[Artyguy]

Hola folks. I've settled in for a month or so and can now sleep with the crazy traffic outside my window. The issue I haven't quite figured out is...what/where is that crazy whistle one hears when walking down the street? My guess is that drivers have bought a whistling device because honking the horn a dozen times a day gets old. I dunno. Enlightenment anyone?

 

[mcaffa]

What you are hearing is probably either 1) the bus horns (I think the whistle is to tell people to get out of the way?) or 2) the knife sharpening guy (afilador).

 

[French jurist]

Hola folks. I've settled in for a month or so and can now sleep with the crazy traffic outside my window. The issue I haven't quite figured out is...what/where is that crazy whistle one hears when walking down the street? My guess is that drivers have bought a whistling device because honking the horn a dozen times a day gets old. I dunno. Enlightenment anyone?

I think that what you hear is the compressed air system added to the buses wheels : if you look at the wheels of the buses, you'll see some kind of tube starting from the center of them. By rotating, the wheel delivers compressed air through this tube that fills a tank inside the bus, this tank redistributing the compressed air to allow for the bus doors to open and close.

Quite a scientific explanation

 

[nikad]

tinnitus... lol

 

[Celia]

Are you talking about the guy that plays a kind of pan pipes as he walks down the block? I've heard that every few weeks for ages and thought he must be a drugs dealer, ha!!

 

[HowardinBA]

round here they whistle,to tell you they want to sharpen knives etc or sell garlic etc...i kinda like it

 

[French jurist]

Well, another plausible explanation if you had been a girl : being damn sexy