ABSTRACT
In the current chapter three specific ill-effects of music on driver behaviour and vehicular control are considered. The chapter asserts that music is a distraction because the sounds themselves prevent drivers from making the best use of attention needed to drive a car. A drivers’ hearing can be obstructed, their thoughts can be directed elsewhere to memories and connotations of past experiences, and their motor activity can be hampered by an overwhelming rhythmic organization expressed through body movement of the vocal cords, hands, pelvis, and feet. In short, the chapter reflects on the circumstances by which engaging in music activity might be incongruent for the perceptual timing, motor control, and cognitive judgement of occurrences subsequent to the optic flow of events necessary to synchronize with traffic. Within the chapter, individual differences related to age, gender, and personality (specifically sensation-seeking) are explored. The ill-effects of music on driving are: music-intensity evoked arousal (i.e., overly rambunctious driving), music-tempo generated distraction (i.e., hampered longitudinal and lateral control), and music-genre induced aggression (i.e., a habitual driving style beset with risk-taking and unfriendliness).
