Music Affects Teen Motorists Accident Risks
Most of the focus on the dangers to teenage drivers from listening to music in the car has centered on the distractions that arise when a teenager changes CD’s, or changes radio channels to listen to his favorite music. However, the type of music that teens listen to can also increase accident risks significantly.
According to a new study, teenage drivers who were listening to music that they liked or preferred were much more likely to make driving errors, which increased accident risks significantly.
The research was conducted by a group of Israeli scientists, who evaluated 85 young novice drivers. Each of these motorists was asked to take six trips, each of which lasted for about 40 minutes. In two of these trips, the teenagers listened to music of their own preference, while on two of the trips, they listened to music that was specially designed to increase driver safety, like light jazz. On the last two trips, they did not listen to any music at all.
The researchers focused on finding out the effect of the music on the person’s driving abilities, by measuring driving deficiencies, like aggressiveness, speeding and other factors.
They found that almost all the teenage drivers were likely to make critical driving errors, and display driving deficiencies while driving listening to their favorite music. 98% of the teenage drivers made an average of three deficient driving behaviors, like aggression, inaccuracy, and miscalculation while driving.
Approximately 32% of the teenage drivers who were listening to their favorite music required a sudden warning or emergency command in order to avoid an accident, while 20% require an assisted braking maneuver by the researcher in the car to prevent an accident.
