Gridlock Guy: Research shows music may affect driving differently than we think

ATLANTA — Almost exactly five years ago, I wrote in this space about two particular songs that I felt had caused me to speed. “Wet Sand” by my favorite band, Red Hot Chili Peppers, busted loose in its crescendo and should have gotten me a speeding ticket on Clairmont Road. Some 10 years before that, “Welcome to the Black Parade” by My Chemical Romance gleaned me an expensive infraction on Buford Highway in Doraville. 

In both cases, I got lost in songs I liked and my attention drifted from how much speed I was carrying. 

This is why I perked up when I saw this recent piece on TheCoversation.com about music’s effect on driving. Milad Haghani, an associate professor of urban resistance and mobility at the University of Melbourne, helped conduct tests with subjects on driving simulators in his own lab in Australia. He also has compiled a couple of decades’ worth of research from around the world. This helped him draw some broad conclusions. 

“We know that if you drive under the silent condition, you will have lesser errors. You will have [less] risk of crashes. You will have better performance in a speed control and you will have better performance in maintaining the distance with the vehicle in front of you,” Haghani told 11Alive and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. However, Haghani said that evidence has not shown music to affect drivers maintaining their lanes or their reaction times. 

But Haghani is not promoting the abolition of music in cars, as he notes its effects on driving are far less than when drivers hold their phones or drive drunk. Haghani, though, has found some nuance in the impacts of the different things we choose to play. 

Loud music, he said, does not necessarily cause poorer driving and, surprisingly, data shows fast-tempoed beats do not either. 

But the genre with the biggest impact is often fast and loud, Haghani said. “Aggressive genres such as heavy metal and genres of that category – they have been shown to nudge the driver towards not only higher speed, but overall a more aggressive and a more risk-taking style of driving.” 

He also said that younger or more inexperienced drivers are more impressionable to the impacts of music – or any other distraction in the driving environment. 

Haghani said that what he and other researchers are measuring, basically, is the amount of brain power that any kind of action takes. The more things the driver has to process, the more likely they are to make a mistake. 

So Haghani said that motorists in labs have performed better when they pick their own music – when they like and recognize the songs. This bolsters my opinion that whoever drives a car should choose the music. This also could dispel my theory on how the Chili Peppers and My Chemical Romance affected my driving years ago. 

Haghani also had some interesting findings with spoken word: podcasts and news have little effect on driving, unless the subject matter is heavy (economics and finance caused some mistakes). Conversations about ordinary things are okay, but backseat passengers cause more brain-load. And using hands-free voice assistants are just as distracting as a hands-free phone call. 

Haghani’s findings show that we should pay more attention to what distracts us the most. Even if we don’t completely erase Metallica from our playlist, maybe we will hit the “next” arrow when we are driving in the rain or on an unfamiliar road at night. Every little bit helps. 

Doug Turnbull covers the traffic/transportation beat for 11Alive with Rachel Cox-Rosen. Watch their live reports from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. on 11Alive+. His Gridlock Guy column also appears on Sundays in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Subscribe to the weekly “Gridlock Guy” newsletter for the column here.