Home » Study suggests that music can affect the way in which we drive

Study suggests that music can affect the way in which we drive

After unlocking the car, opening the door, turning the ignition, checking your mirrors and so on, the final step is always putting some sort of noise on in the car; whether that comes in the form of the radio, your own music or a podcast as such, it’s a very normal thing to do. Quite frankly, we would be bored stupid without anything playing in the car whilst driving. Well, according to a study, our choice of what we listen to in the car may actually play a huge impact on our driving decisions and choices. This theory has become apparent according to UK based car leasing firm, All Car Leasing, who conducted a study which looked at the correlation between music and driving called ‘Blame it on the boogie’. They asked their surveyees a variety of different questions to make cross-references between data and it turned out to be quite interesting.

The first question they queried was “what do people listen to in the car?” with the options of radio, their own music, audiobook, podcast or simply nothing as well as preferred genre. It turns out that the majority of people most commonly listen to radio (52.7% of surveyees agreeing); and interestingly, more people would choose to listen to nothing at all, than an Audiobook which in fact contradicts my initial statement! They also asked their audience whether they had been caught speeding and had received points on their license in the past six years to see if there was a correlation. It turns out that one quarter of the entire survey had been caught speeding in the past six years showing just how common speeding really is, and the data suggested that those who listen to podcasts were more likely than the general population to be caught speeding, with 32% saying that they had been caught within the last 6 years. When it came to preference in genre, Soul was surprisingly the most common genre that those who speed listen to, followed by country music and then rock… This was surprising as most people would associate those who listen to Rock and Rap to be the most boisterous and be the faster drivers, but the study suggests otherwise!

Have you ever approached a roundabout or started a three-point turn and noticed that you turn the volume down when doing so? Well… you’re not alone, 72% of respondents were also said to turn the volume down when making a manoeuvre as a means of not being distracted even if they were hardly listening to the music in the car. One of the things they looked at was how loud people were inclined to play their music out loud with an emphasis on gender. Again, they found confliction where Females were 13% more likely to play music in residential areas than males were, even though stereotypes would say otherwise. Looking at the study as a whole, it becomes apparent that music does play a part on the decisions we make when driving, but some contrasting results at that.

Included below is a podcast that discusses this in more detail, followed by an infographic.

Blame it on the boogie

Blame it on the boogie by All Car Leasing

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