The European Environment Agency (EEA) estimates that
- more than 125 million Europeans are exposed to road traffic noise levels above legal guidelines (55dB L_den),
- road traffic noise causes at least 10,000 premature deaths each year,
- almost 20 million adults are annoyed and a further 8 million suffer sleep disturbance due to environmental noise,
- over 900 000 cases of hypertension are caused by environmental noise each year,
- noise pollution causes 43 000 hospital admissions in Europe per year.
The full report Noise in Europe 2014 can be downloaded from the EEA web site.