Dr. Oakes on the freeway, would no sound have been better?

Very powerful scene.

However when the bomb detonated in the distance, how would it have been if the sound had been accurate? If there had been no change at all in his local ambient noise until some minute or so later when the sound of the blast got there?

Ok, a minute would have been too long for movie making purposes but some delay would have changed the scene entirely.

I get that the sound effects they went with added a lot of powerful drama to the scene and I can't fault them for that at all, but if it had been handled differently that delay could have made the scene so spooky and effective in a different way.