There is a medical treatise, "On Assholes", just waiting to be written here, in much the same way that Harry G. Frankfurt introduced us to the technical academic concept of 'bullshit' in his book "On Bullshit".
Participants were 529 (289 men, 234 women, and 6 identified as other) undergraduate business students with a mean age of 18.14 years (SD = 1.19, range 16 to 37).
Sigh. A sample of convenience.
Psychology remains the study of undergraduates.
If they wanted real answers, they'd go to bike events.
I would like to find a lighter exhaust system for my motorcycle, the stock system weighs like 30 pounds. All the aftermarket exhausts seem to be louder then stock. I want something that light and quiet but everyone else seems to want loud AF.
>Some incidents have led to injuries. In 2021, six bicyclists training for a road race were run over by a 16-year-old who was rolling coal along Business U.S. Highway 290 in Waller County, Texas, outside Houston, when he attempted to drive ahead of the group to engulf them in the exhaust. Two of the cyclists were injured severely enough to require medical evacuation by helicopter. The motorist was not charged at the time of the collision; local cyclists' groups were outraged. [13] He was later charged with six felony counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. [14]
I'm not a car guy, so I used to think such ear-damaging decibels were necessary for performance but have since learned it's not required even for ultra-high performance road cars that can go >200 mph. While a 12 cylinder Lamborghini Aventador is louder than a Hyundai, when both are idling at a stop light, it's actually barely louder from 100 feet away. And yet people with real supercars almost never modify them to be louder than stock.
My wife is a serious car girl and drives her beloved McLaren well enough to be in the top five on amateur days at Sonoma Raceway. She's taught me that different supercars each have their own signature sound and to her it'd be sacrilegious to mess with such iconic perfection. :-)
She's in a club of other supercar owners that puts on a huge charity car show where members bring over $100M of exotics - and none of those cars are nearly as loud as the sonic assault from one of the hopped up $10k rust buckets that occasionally pulls up next to my wife at a stop light and makes our ears bleed revving their engine. They always want to race "the cute girl in the McLaren" but she never takes the bait. When I asked why, she just scoffed that they're all bark and no bite. Plus she has no idea if the driver is race-trained, if their rust-bucket is even safe to be near at high-speeds or if they have insurance. Her favorite line about engine noise is from when she was picking up her car at the McLaren factory in England. While track-testing it with one of the race engineers, he joked "as engineers, we see excess noise as embarrassing because it's wasted horsepower we failed to transfer to the axle."
Participants were 529 undergraduate business students with a mean age of 18.14 years
I find this participant set pointless.
Most kids who were with me in college dreamt of owning muscle cars and Harleys.
Fast forward 25 years: The same set, now in their 40s, get elevated blood pressure at the mere thought of having to share the road with a lifted truck.
Those questions don't allow for the possibility of installing louder exhausts for non-psychoanalyzable reasons... There are also degrees of loudness.
I put a slightly louder exhaust on my turbo car because the large torque jump at around 2000 rpm is/was harder to anticipate with the standard exhaust and cabin sound dampening at speed. Now the engine note is a better indicator of the impending torque jump and makes driving smoother and easier without taking my eyes off the road and onto the tachometer.
21 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 51.2 ms ] threadat no point does the study mention mid-life or anyone outside of the college cohort.
Sigh. A sample of convenience. Psychology remains the study of undergraduates.
If they wanted real answers, they'd go to bike events.
Crafty – Machiavellianism
Special – narcissism
Wild – psychopathy
Mean – sadism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_coal
>Some incidents have led to injuries. In 2021, six bicyclists training for a road race were run over by a 16-year-old who was rolling coal along Business U.S. Highway 290 in Waller County, Texas, outside Houston, when he attempted to drive ahead of the group to engulf them in the exhaust. Two of the cyclists were injured severely enough to require medical evacuation by helicopter. The motorist was not charged at the time of the collision; local cyclists' groups were outraged. [13] He was later charged with six felony counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. [14]
[13] A teenager allegedly hit 6 bicyclists with his truck, sending 3 to the hospital. A biker says the driver was harassing them. https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/09/30/texas-teen-...
[14] Waller DA files 6 felonies for 'rolling coal' crash that injured 6 cyclists https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/transpor...
MAGA supporter who coal rolled (black truck smoke) onto protesters outs himself (Parker, Co)
https://www.reddit.com/r/parkerco/comments/1qbdx8a/maga_supp...
Coal rolled at the 'No Kings' protest
https://thewesternnews.com/news/2025/jun/17/coal-rolled-at-t...
The Cruel Practice of Rolling Coal
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-red-light-distri...
My wife is a serious car girl and drives her beloved McLaren well enough to be in the top five on amateur days at Sonoma Raceway. She's taught me that different supercars each have their own signature sound and to her it'd be sacrilegious to mess with such iconic perfection. :-)
She's in a club of other supercar owners that puts on a huge charity car show where members bring over $100M of exotics - and none of those cars are nearly as loud as the sonic assault from one of the hopped up $10k rust buckets that occasionally pulls up next to my wife at a stop light and makes our ears bleed revving their engine. They always want to race "the cute girl in the McLaren" but she never takes the bait. When I asked why, she just scoffed that they're all bark and no bite. Plus she has no idea if the driver is race-trained, if their rust-bucket is even safe to be near at high-speeds or if they have insurance. Her favorite line about engine noise is from when she was picking up her car at the McLaren factory in England. While track-testing it with one of the race engineers, he joked "as engineers, we see excess noise as embarrassing because it's wasted horsepower we failed to transfer to the axle."
I find this participant set pointless.
Most kids who were with me in college dreamt of owning muscle cars and Harleys.
Fast forward 25 years: The same set, now in their 40s, get elevated blood pressure at the mere thought of having to share the road with a lifted truck.
I put a slightly louder exhaust on my turbo car because the large torque jump at around 2000 rpm is/was harder to anticipate with the standard exhaust and cabin sound dampening at speed. Now the engine note is a better indicator of the impending torque jump and makes driving smoother and easier without taking my eyes off the road and onto the tachometer.
Actual title: A desire for a loud car with a modified muffler is predicted by being a man and higher scores on psychopathy and sadism
Past: https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=ug.edu.pl