Okay, this could well be a stupid leap from shaky premise to unwarranted conclusion. But based on what this article states:
I can’t help wondering whether the apparent upsurge in road rage in recent years might be connected.
Can anyone shed light on this idea? Either in support, or to show me I’m all wet? (Wouldn’t be the first time.)
Well Basicly, based on all the locker room talk steroid Abuse leads not to road rage, but Roid Rage. Classic example is in the moive the program. THey Crazy linebacker who was a kicker the year before. He was doing more roids then The Oakland Raiders, and he just started going bananas.
THe guys I knew In High School whore were Juicing were also very agressive, VERY AGRESSIVE.
On a sidenote, for those of you who are not wrestling fans you might not be aware, but alot of big name Wrestling stars from the 1980’s are starting to drop dead. Davy Boy Smith, Lex Lugar, and Road Warrior Hawk to name a few. All of them were big time Juicers about 20 years ago, all died of heart failure which is a known side effect of steroid use. So PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE under no circumstances ever use the stuff. its just not worth it. THe Long and short term phyical and emotional damge is not worth being buff under any circumstances.
Some of the best road ragers I’ve ever had the misfortune to be riding with weren’t juiced on anything but their own tempers.
What you’re asking for is some study that shows the proportion of acts of road rage committed by young athletes, and I don’t think that’s been broken out anywhere.
I don’t think you have to look for exotic causes for road rage. You’ve got more cars on the roads than they were meant to handle, often being driven by people who shouldn’t even be licensed to push lawnmowers around their front yard. Stir in people who are already stressed out for some reason and you’ve got an ugly mix.
However, if you want my theory on why there’s more road rage, I blame the proliferation of large vehicles, especially those with tinted back windows, that block people’s view of the road ahead. Not only does traffic not flow smoothly, but you can’t see far enough ahead of you to * predict * when traffic is going to slow down. So you end up slamming on the brakes all the time, thus continually adding fuel to that inner simmering feeling that the people driving in front of you are a bunch of cretinous chimps who should be knocked upside the head with 2x4s.
Anyone with any sense knows that teenagers and young men shouldn’t be taking steroids, but this is interesting. However, it doesn’t speak to steroid use post-adolescence.
btw, I’m not aware of any evidence that roid rage is a real phenomenon in adults except for people who already have aggression issues. But that’s a separate issue from what’s being discussed in the study.
Oh, of course, I agree that road rage has a lot of causes; there’s no one factor that dominates, I would say. I just wondered whether some part of the apparent increase in it is related to the increased use of steroids over the last few decades, given the study’s findings:
If the results of the study cited in the article are indeed transferable from laboratory animals to humans, then perhaps residual roid rage is helping to fuel road rage. Not just in guys currently on steroids, but also people who’d taken them in the past – perhaps many years ago. That’s the part that intrigued me.
It would be quite difficult, though, to conduct a study that could filter out all the other influences and measure to what degree steroid after-effects add to driving aggression.
Is there any study showing a correlation between steroid use and violent crime and just examining athletes?
I note the study examined the effects of testosterone, a naturally occurring hormone. Yes, it’s a steroid, but according to the Hammond-Barnhart Dictionary of Science, a steroid is:
“Any of a large class of structurally related compounds containing the carbon ring of the sterols, and including the sterols, various hormones, saponins, and acids found in bile.”
So the fact that testosterone per se had no effect on levels of aggression doesn’t mean much. After all, testosterone and estrogen are both hormones, and thus by this definition steroids, but they for sure don’t have the same effects on the human body, right?
I also note that the cited source is a promoter of steroid use to build muscle mass. No offense, ultrafilter but to me that seems to be not exactly a disinterested party.
Take it as you will, but that’s what the study says. And steroids are a large class of compounds, but anabolic steroids work by mimicing testosterone.
There’s actually a fair bit of (admittedly mostly anecdotal) evidence to link anabolic steroids with aggressive behaviour. For example, from Hormones and Behavior 2002: 41, 101–110 (with AAS standing for Anaboloic Androgenic Steroids):
So, ultrafilter, although I don’t know about any link with ‘road rage’, I do think there’s good reason to believe that at least some people who use anabolic steroids become aggressive.
When I was in the service, one of my guys was a steroid user. We always knew when he was on another cycle. Nicest guy in the world, but he would come in some days and just be a regular SOB. “New cycle Jimmy”? “Fuck off”!!! “Yeah, thought so”.
Roids do make some people bastards, but not all of them. As far as the road rage crap, no. There has always been road rage, but nowdays, there is a term for it, along with bullshit excuses like “roids”.
I don’t use roids but I am a road rage case waiting to happen. I think of it more of “reaction to stupid fucking people”. Tailgate me long enough, and I’m just a hair away from following you home and kicking your ass for being a dipshit.