Worst Music for Safe Driving

While we all love to play our favorite type of music, studies have shown that certain types can make you a worse driver. Just like eating, talking to passengers, and texting, listening to music while driving is a potential distraction. If you’re trying to improve your safety on the road, consider eliminating the following types of music.

Rock and Rap

A study carried out by Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel showed that young drivers who listen to rock or rap music when they’re driving are more likely to make mistakes or even have an accident. Warren Brodsky, one of the researchers in the study, says we’re not aware of how much we get drawn into our music. Music genres that have songs with particularly forceful lyrics and beats can make us drive aggressively as well.

Your Favorite Genre

This same study out of Israel also showed simply listening to your favorite music can also cause distractions. Drivers who put together a playlist with their favorite type of music had a high number of miscalculations and incidents of aggressive driving incidents as well. Often, we don’t even realize that our mind starts to wander when we’re listening to our favorite songs. We start to think about what we were doing when we first heard the song, or we’re even concentrating harder on figuring out the lyrics than what’s going on around us.

Classical

While it makes sense that rock and rap can lead to aggressive driving, research has also shown that classical music makes for unsafe driving. While some people might not consider classical music very moving or stirring, it actually has many fluctuations in volume, speed, and tone. One classical song can have soaring highs and hushed lows within seconds of each other. This can cause many drivers to constantly take their eyes off the road as they adjust their volumes.

Lullabies

While you likely aren’t making your daily commute listening to lullabies, if you’re driving around trying to get a fussy baby to fall asleep, you might be tempted to play soft and tranquil music. However, a peaceful lullaby could have the same effect on you, especially if you’re dealing with your own sleepless nights. Instead, save the lullabies for when you’re at home and stick with your regular music as you try to encourage your little one to fall asleep.

Loud Music

Regardless of what type of music you have on in your vehicle, if you’re listening to it too loud, it can cause a distraction. The first obvious issue is that listening to loud music makes it harder to hear surrounding noises, like the sirens of emergency vehicles. Additionally, loud music can actually slow reaction time because the human brain starts to concentrate on the rhythm and beats instead of what’s going on in the environment.

When you’re trying to drive more safely, ditch the worst types of music for driving. Instead, look for genres that have songs that mimic the human heartbeat at around 60 to 80 beats per minute, which is actually the safest driving music.