Always crashing in the same car: Major album releases lead to increased traffic fatalities

A new study has found that the number of road traffic accidents increases on days that a major album has been released.

The paper - entitled Smartphones, Online Music Streaming and Traffic Fatalities - has been produced by the National Bureau of Economic Research in the US, with research being conducted by a team from Harvard Medical School.

How did they do that, we hear you ask? Well, Spotify streaming data, you see. Looking at the period between 2017 and 2022, on days of major album releases, smartphone use rocketed by 40%. But so did traffic fatalities – by 15%.

David Bowie - Always Crashing In The Same Car - YouTube

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The presumption is that some drivers get so caught up in hearing their favourite artist’s new album that their attention wanders and they make mistakes at the wheel. This theory does have a certain logic behind it.

But Friday is also the start of the weekend and a far busier time on the roads than earlier in the week anyway. The study, sadly, was not able to look back more than a decade. It was only in 2015 that release dates for new music were synched up around the globe. Prior to that, they varied from territory to territory. In the US, Tuesdays were the day to look forward to. In the UK, it was Monday.

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(Incidentally, if you want to blame someone for this dull homogeny, then look no further than Beyonce. She released her self titled album on Friday 13 December 2013 reputedly because she wanted her fans to listen to it over that weekend, after which the music industry gradually began to shift its release dates as a result.)

Anyway, the study also found that fatalities were also more likely on days with good weather, perhaps because drivers are less likely to concentrate than if it’s raining. Also deaths were higher among single occupant vehicles on release days. Presumably because they had no passengers to fiddle about with the stereo.

So the message is… drive especially carefully on Fridays, kids. You can have a look at the Smartphones, Online Music Streaming and Traffic Fatalities paper by clicking here.