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Sun 15 Apr, 2007 05:40 pm
Do you think some types of music you listen to while driving, make you drive more aggressively?
Quote:Rock classics drive motorists over limit
Thu Apr 12, 2007 9:58 PM ET
LONDON (Reuters) - Want to stay safe on the roads? Then avoid listening to Guns N Roses, Meat Loaf and Bruce Springsteen behind the wheel.
The trio are among the artists featured on a top 10 of tracks that get people's blood pumping and in the mood to drive aggressively.
Some 1,700 voters have so far responded to an online poll run by Electronic Arts and AOL to mark the launch of a new racing videogame, "Burnout Dominator."
The resultant shortlist of tracks that get people revved up -- and that drivers should avoid listening to in the real world -- spans more than 30 years of chart favorites, although none of them actually reached number 1.
It includes classic rock tracks, such as Meat Loaf's "Bat Out Of Hell" and Springsteen's "Born to Run," as well as tracks such as Motorhead's "Ace of Spades" and Guns N Roses' "Paradise City."
More modern tracks, including The Killers' "When we were Young" and Feeder's "Buck Rogers" also featured, as did -- perhaps fittingly -- "You Will Be Under My Wheels" by dance act the Prodigy.
No, in my case it's the other drivers.
Yeah, there is some music that would make me drive agressively, if only I had a heavier projectile to drive. That music is called "Other People's" at 105 decibels.
Not more aggressively, but faster.
I usually listen to "classical" music when i drive, or old ballads, so no, i don't react that way. However, i once got a ride to work with this woman who worked for me answering the switchboard. She was playing punk rock so loud, that i rolled down the window, even though it was winter. She drove very fast, on narrow two-lane roads where that is dangerous, and was yelling at other drivers who she obviously thought drove too slowly or not very well. She remarked that she didn't drink coffee, and she used the music to wake her up in the morning.
I never again asked her for a ride after that.
In my case, I've found that music can be distracting, so I no longer listen to it when I drive.
I'm wondering about the folks I've seen drive with headphones on. Seems to me a very unsafe practice.
One day I was driving on a 45 mph road, and Poulenc's Organ Concerto came on. If you know this piece, you can recognize how it just might impel a driver to hit the gas. I must have been going 65 or 70 when I realized what was happening.
Reyn wrote:I'm wondering about the folks I've seen drive with headphones on. Seems to me a very unsafe practice.
It's illegal in some jurisdictions. You can be pulled over and ticketed for that in Ohio.
I don't find that it's the primary source of agressive driving. Maybe more of an encouragement.
But then again, I'm a pansy on the road. To me, agressive is 5 miles over the speed limit without other cars around.
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