Music while driving increases concentration. Driving with music doesn’t put the driver at risk instead music’s impact on the driver’s mood and concentration proves to be very good.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRLl80zJOdE
As part of the defensive driving course New York, the integration of music with student drivers is worthwhile. Music helps to keep the student driver’s attention and surprisingly becomes a better driver faster.
This is evident from the Ph.D. research of Ayça Berfu Ünal at the University of Groningen. Experienced drivers between the ages of 25 and 35 are well able to keep their attention on the road, even if they listen to the radio or music at the same time.
In doing so, Ünal makes short work of the idea of many laymen that drivers who listen to music drive too fast and break the traffic rules.
Concentration
Ünal’s research is the first to look at the effect of music in different traffic situations. For the study, she used a simulator. “For example, we let participants drive a car for half an hour on a quiet road,” said the researcher. ‘It showed that people who listen to music concentrate better on driving and therefore perform better than without music. That makes sense: in boring traffic situations, music is a good distraction to keep your attention on traffic. ‘
Busy city traffic requires more concentration from drivers than a quiet road. Ünal: ‘The natural tendency of drivers is to turn the radio down or turn it off completely. That was not allowed during our experiments. What we saw is that participants focused much more on driving and afterward no longer knew what was heard on the radio. At such a moment, safety comes first so that participants block the distraction – in this case, music or the radio. ‘
Limits
If people take the traffic situation into account and their driving skills have little influence on the driving performance while driving, Ünal’s main conclusion is: “It is important to know your limits. For some, loud music is more disturbing than for others.”