Rash Driving by Teens when Favourite Music is On

Researchers from Ben-Gurion University of Negev in Israel have found that male novice drivers make serious driving mistakes when they are listening to their preferred music. The mistakes they commit when driving have been found to be in fact more serious than their female counterpart.

This study included 85 young novice drivers who were accompanied by a researcher and a driving instructor. Then each of these drivers took six trips for 40 minutes each while the music played from their own playlists. Two of these were background music which was designed for to increase driver’s safety; they were music that was for easy listening, soft rock, light jazz and the likes. Two additional trips were made without any music. It was found that when the teen drivers listened to their preferred music almost 98 per cent of them demonstrated an average of three deficient driving behaviours in at least one of the trips.

Also, without listening to any music, 92 per cent of them made errors. However, when driving with an alternative music background designed by Brodsky and Israeli music composer Micha Kisner, deficient driving behaviours decreased by 20 per cent. "Most drivers worldwide prefer to listen to music in a car and those between ages 16 to 30 choose driving to pop, rock, dance, hip-hop and rap. Young drivers also tend to play this highly energetic, fast-paced music very loudly - approximately 120 to 130 decibels," Brodsky said.

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