Recent Study Reveals Correlation Between Release of Famous Musicians' Albums and Traffic Accident Rates

JAKARTA - The good news about the launch of a new album from a world-famous musician turns out to have a dark side that endangers lives on the road.

A recent study revealed a surprising correlation between the spike in fatal traffic accidents and the day of the release of a large-scale music album.

Based on a research report entitled "Smartphones, Online Music Streaming, and Traffic Fatalities" released by the National Bureau of Economic Research, a team of experts from Harvard Medical School found that the risk of death from accidents increased drastically when millions of people flocked to access streaming platforms simultaneously.

During the observation period, Taylor Swift's 2022 album "Midnight" held the highest streaming record with 184 million spins in a day, before she finally broke her own record with "The Tortured Poets Department" with 300 million spins in 2024.

In addition to Swift, big names such as Drake, Bad Bunny, Kendrick Lamar, Harry Styles, and Kanye West are also on the list of triggers for a surge in digital traffic that has an impact on public safety.

The researchers concluded after analyzing data from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System in the United States as well as Spotify streaming data from 2017 to 2022.

The focus of the study is on the days when 10 albums with the highest daily listeners are released.

The results are pretty scary: the use of smart phones in general jumped by 40 percent, accompanied by an increase in the number of deaths on the road by 15 percent on the same day.

The phenomenon is suspected to be triggered by the distraction of the driver who is busy operating the mobile phone to listen to new songs while driving.

"The death toll continued to show an increase on Friday when the album was released, compared to the Friday before or after the release date," the researchers wrote in their official report, quoted by NME, Tuesday, March 10.

The research also dispelled the notion that the increase in accidents was only due to the weekend factor.

The more ironic thing is that fatal accidents actually involve drivers who are not under the influence of alcohol and occur in sunny weather.

Experts argue that the road conditions that look safe actually make drivers careless and feel free to be distracted by their gadgets.

In addition, a higher accident rate was found in vehicles that only contained a single driver without passengers.