Does reeking petrol really result in rat road rage?

EMISSIONS: Scientists in Cairo are citing a link between petrol fumes and road rage following experiments with rats

My little nose was twitching last week reading about a survey that reckons sniffing petrol fumes causes road rage.

In case you missed it, Cairo University’s psychology department jammed groups of male rats into boxes which they then pumped full of leaded or unleaded petrol fumes. A control group was treated to fresh air.

They observed that the rats who’d been gassed spent even more time than usual in “belligerent postures” and tearing lumps off each other than those who hadn’t.

Therefore, the boffins concluded, petrol fumes cause road rage.

“Heightened aggression may be yet another risk for the human population chronically exposed to urban air polluted by automobile smoke,” the study decrees, a tad indecisively, if you ask me.

I have a few thoughts on this. First, if they still have leaded petrol in Egypt, where did they get the fresh air to give to the control rats?

I was also very disappointed to read that they had put the rats in boxes. Not because I give a hoot for rat welfare but because it would have been much more fun – and far more scientific – to stick them in little cars and plonk them in the middle of the Cairo version of the M50 at rush hour.

They could have had themselves a cracking little rat race. In rat rods. And ratted on each other for cheating. (Enough already – Ed.)

And why use rats at all? Surely choking humans with exhaust fumes in crates would elicit a more accurate response.

Sadly, the powers that govern such matters apparently believe real humans are too precious to be used in such dangerous experiments. As if.

So scientists are forced to use rats instead. (Facetiousness aside, in case you are wondering why rats are so ubiquitous in experiments of this nature, the explanation is quite simple. It is because rats are exactly like Manchester United fans – they share 98 per cent of their DNA with humans, there is a surplus of them in the world and nobody except other rats likes them.)

As you’ll have gathered, I’m not entirely convinced that our Egyptian chums have proven their case. Personally, I think road rage is caused by some kind of mental misfire. It has been postulated that those prone to it may be suffering from a behavioural problem known as Intermittent Explosive Disorder (IED), which is characterised by extreme expressions of anger, often to the point of uncontrollable rage, that are disproportionate to the situation at hand.

This condition is not to be confused with the other type of IED, namely the Improvised Explosive Device, which drug dealers stick under their rivals’ cars. This is an entirely different type of road rage altogether.

But, just for the sake of argument, let’s say fumes really do cause road rage. Just imagine the financial possibilities.

All you have to do, if you want to make a tidy fortune for yourself, is design a little gas mask that filters out the petrol fumes. You could patent it and convince governments all over the world that all drivers should, as a safety measure, be legally required to wear them. Think of all the money seatbelt manufacturers made when they became compulsory in all sensible societies.

And while I’m no great fan of aromatherapy – the only essential oil that I have any time for is Castrol GTX – it might be a nice little bonus to have luxury models that pump soothing odours into drivers’ nasal passages.

You could have burning hash for the boyracers, frying rashers for the truckers, the unmistakable whiff of a nice cup of tea and a saucer of Marietta biscuits for the old dears and Guinness fumes to relax Mattie McGrath.

In the meantime, can I suggest everyone sticks corks up their nostrils? True, we’ll all look ridiculous but at least we’ll never get ratty with each other again.