On These Specific Fridays, Fatal Car Crashes Increase by 15%

The best excuse to call in sick when a new album drops.

A new album release could have everyone swerving like this. Photo by LouisMoto on Unsplash

What’s the most unsafe activity that you do almost every day?

For most of us, it’s when we sit behind the wheel of a car, risking our lives in a 2-ton hunk of aluminum, glass, and steel that hurtles along at 55 miles per hour, swerving and weaving amid other behemoths doing the same thing.

How many times have you caught a glimpse of a fellow driver who isn’t paying attention to the road? They might be looking at their phones, holding an emphatic argument with someone else (either in the car or on the phone), attempting to simultaneously eat and drive, or rocking out to a song, barely focusing on the traffic around them.

That last situation — listening to music — may be especially dangerous on certain, specific days.

Specifically, when a new album drops.

Researchers find a link between T. Swift and traffic crashes

Researchers at Harvard Medical School dug into this question, looking at data on car crashes to try and see whether there were specific variables that correlated with an increase in crashes.

In their paper, “Smartphones, Online Music Streaming, and Traffic Fatalities”, they found that there was a strong correlation with the releases of new albums.

On the day that a new album dropped (Taylor Swift, Drake, Bad Bunny, Kendrick Lamar, Kanye West, or Harry Styles), there was:

• A 40% increase in the use of streaming services (more users boot up Spotify, Apple Music, or another service on their phone)
• A 15% increase in traffic fatalities.

Specifically, the peaks of each increase in crash rate centers directly on the date that the album drops. In their data, there were an average of about 121 car crash deaths per day — but on days that a new album dropped, there were 139 average deaths.

Could it just be due to the day?

Most albums are released on Fridays, by design. This provides a full weekend of tracking data, aligns with Spotify’s “New Music Friday” curated playlists, and captures a full week of tracking data for Billboard chart rankings.

(Fun fact: the release date used to be Tuesdays, back when physical CDs were sold in stores. Superstar Beyoncé is credited with upending this in 2013, when she released her album on a Friday, setting a new precedent.)

What if this association is just a correlation? Are there more crashes on Fridays, even if a new album isn’t dropping?

Turns out that this isn’t the case. Friday has the second-highest crash rate of the week, second only to Saturday, but researchers compared album-release Fridays to no-new-music Fridays and found that the effect persisted. They also looked at the same Friday in different years, to see if the effect was due to proximity to a holiday — no dice.

New music Fridays are, indeed, dangerous — even deadly.

Worse than regular music listening?

There are some other useful tidbits to tease out of the data.

First, the fatality rate was significantly higher in vehicles where the driver was alone. The researchers posit that it’s probably easier to hand the phone to a passenger to deejay the music, so in single-occupant vehicles, the driver is attempting to be both the pilot and the emcee.

Second, the deaths were more common among sober drivers than drunk ones. A drunk driver may not even try to reach for their phone to change the music, while a sober driver may feel more capable of doing so.

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Third, the effect wasn’t greater at night or in bad weather. Again, during nice, clear weather with plenty of sun, drivers may be most tempted to reach for their smartphones. “I’ve got everything under control,” they may say, lulled into a false sense of security. “I can mess with the music for a bit.”

But the driver is still piloting a two-ton chunk of metal at breakneck speeds. It’s still potentially deadly to take your eyes off the road.

What should we do?

The easiest, simplest answer: don’t mess with your phone while driving.

If you drive with a passenger along for the ride, make them the deejay and give them control over the playlist choices. You can tell them that you want to listen to the latest album to drop, but it might even be better to stick with the oldies; the act of listening to something novel, like a new album, can be more distracting than listening to a well-known song.

Again, don’t mess with your phone. Along with that, don’t get lulled into a false sense of complacency. Just because the weather is sunny, the roads are smooth, and you’re alert and sober, it’s not an excuse to go digging in your Spotify playlists.

If you do want to listen to music and don’t have a copilot, consider setting up voice controls for your car or smartphone. “Hey Siri, play the latest album by Taylor Swift” is easier to say than to go tapping on a touchscreen for twenty seconds.

Finally, especially if you know that a new album is releasing, stay vigilant! You may know that it’s best to not stream the newest hits, but your fellow drivers might still be taking that risk. Watch for cars that are driving erratically or seem distracted, and keep your distance.

In this day and age, there are many potentially deadly distractions for drivers on the road. One of those is the release of new music by top artists; the novelty of new songs, combined with the ever-present allure of the smartphone in the car, leads to a noticeable increase in fatal crashes on release day.

Perhaps, if there’s a big album drop by a celebrated mega-artist, it’s a good reason to take a sick day — or, at the minimum, to see about working remotely.

After all, there’s nothing like jamming out to some fresh new music in the comfort of your home, while also avoiding an increased risk of car accidents!