If you are nervous about your teenager driving through tunnels, you may want to tell them to turn on some music. When a teenager starts driving, it can cause a lot of turmoil and anxiety for parents. Their teenagers now have a lot of freedom, and they will constantly be out in the car or asking to borrow yours. Teenagers may not be, in general, “bad drivers,” but they are new. They are not as experienced and parents can worry about their safety when they are behind the wheel. One of these concerns may be driving through a tunnel, which has been shown to be hazardous.
According to Study Finds, a new study has shown that listening to slow music while driving through a tunnel can help the driver stay focused. Mom may want to encourage her teen to have a tunnel playlist that they can listen to when they are approaching a tunnel.
The study was published in Frontiers in Psychology and it can be read in full here. Previous studies have shown that while accidents can happen anywhere, they tend to be more serious when they happen within a tunnel. Yanqun Yang is one of the authors of the study, and he agrees.
He stated that when a driver is going through a tunnel, their minds need to process a lot of information very quickly. Their aim for this study was to find a way to keep the driver’s mind alert and focused while they were driving through a tunnel. Driving through a tunnel means that a person has narrow lanes, poor lighting, and then the anxiety that may come from being in an enclosed space. This can be overwhelming to any driver, let alone a teenager who has just started driving and may not be as comfortable yet.
To complete the study, the researchers used 40 young drivers and a virtual reality simulation of driving through a tunnel. They played five different sounds and measured how each driver reacted to the specific sound that was being played. They found that the drivers had the best reaction when listening to slow and calm music while in the tunnel. When fast music was playing, the drivers responded by driving faster and more aggressively, but when the slow music was playing, their driving matched the sound they were hearing. The researchers stated that more research may need to be done to see just how much can help young drivers through a tunnel, but this is a promising start for protecting their health and safety while behind the wheel of a car.
Sources: Study Finds, Frontiers in Psychology