funeralxempire wrote:
Elgee wrote:
They do it for themselves AND to show off to anyone within earshot. You know that old saying, "The loudness of a man's engine is INversely proportional to the size of his (blank)."
You're literally using the canard I just called out as silly and uninformed, surely this is a sign of how informed the rest of your post will be. Beyond that, it's silly to associate driving in a spirited manner with machoism because women are pretty well represented among car fans and in amateur level motorsports.
Elgee wrote:
I have to wonder what kind of brain finds something "visceral" about creating needless noise pollution that is SO thundering loud, that I must tightly plug my ears whenever one of these boneheads drives by. I can hear them from quite a distance when I'm outside in the evening jogging or walking.
Literally it's because
vreee = dopamine. That's kinda the basis for most addictive behaviours. Usually people who've never done it don't get it so there's little point trying to explain. People who like cars tend to enjoy how they sound, so there's that aspect, but there's also that driving causes a Pavlovian response because moving quickly in general tends seems to be rewarding to the brain. The whole experience trains you to associate
engine go vreee with dopamine.
You don't really need to be gunning it, you can hold 2nd until 85 even at part throttle.
Road cars are never loud enough for the driver's hearing to be at risk, even with a stripped out interior.
In a loud-ass race car you'd wear hearing protection.
Your neighbour's old ass car probably needs to get up to temperature before it has any stress placed on it. That's not uncommon with older engines, especially ones in higher states of tune compared to stock. It sounds like you're dunking on an old guy enjoying one of the last few vestiges of his youth. That's a cringe-worthy attitude.
I'm sorry it triggers your misophonia but I don't think we need to rebuild society around it. I really hate the sound of dogs barking, but ultimately it's a
me problem just like this is a
you problem.
I have never ever ever seen a female behind the wheel of any motor vehicle with a thundering engine. My neighbor is middle age; never said he was a senior. Road cars very much so can be loud enough to damage hearing. Maybe not from inside (I assume that's what you mean?), but to anyone it passes by, you'd better believe it. I don't have misophonia; I care about my hearing ability. I'm middle age and have excellent hearing, could hear better than people half my age. That's because I plug my ears whenever these boneheads roar by on their bikes or in their cars or mindlessly rev up their engines when the car is stationary such as at a gas station. You actually DON'T believe they do that for attention?
Yeah, they may love the sound, but it's like people who sneeze crazy loud: The more people within ear shot, the louder the sneeze. I wonder how many of these men would rev their engine over and over if they were in the middle of nowhere, nearest town 50 miles away.
I once lived on a street where a middle age man often revved up his bike engine for 20 minutes nonstop (no kidding here); it was unbelievably loud; it's illegal to jack up the pipes that way. You DO realize that a lot of these engines are
illegally souped up, don't you? That fact alone makes me in the right. Anyways, the police got enough complaints that the man was told to do something about it. He got a horse box trailer; kept the bike in there to rev it up. It did a great job muffling the noise. You really believe his hearing isn't significantly damaged?
Want a dopamine fix from speed? Go inline skating down a hill. Makes no noise and you can actually feel yourself speeding through the air.
Agreed. But I don't think one should be too insistent that people are doing it for attention; we don't know this is true and it distracts from the main point, which is that regardless of the motivation it's highly inconsiderate. Dopamine isn't a reason to drive everyone else crazy. And I have to object to the sneeze analogy--I sneeze very loudly; I hate when everyone turns and looks at me and I would love to sneeze like a normal person, but I can't really do anything about it.
I suspect people who enjoy this noise don't understand how utterly horrific it is for the rest of us, which makes it easy for them to downplay our experiences with it. Society doesn't need to be rebuilt for everyone to just care a little more about others. Dogs barking or bright colors are a necessary part of life, loud cars are (usually) a choice people make that they could just as easily not make.
Today, 1:28 am
