Fatal car crashes spike on major album release days, study suggests

Smartphone use in general spiked by 40%, with traffic fatalities increasing by 15% on the same days as major album releases.

Date published: 9th Mar 2026

A new academic study has suggested that there are more deaths from car crashes on days when major albums are released.

The study, titled ‘Smartphones, Online Music Streaming, and Traffic Fatalities’ and published by the National Bureau of Economic Research last month, investigated “the impact of smartphones on road safety by examining traffic fatalities on days when smartphone use likely surges: the release of major music albums.”

Led by researchers associated with Harvard Medical School, the study used data from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System and Spotify’s charts to track the top 10 most-streamed albums between 2017 and 2022. On the days when major artists such as Taylor Swift, Harry Styles, Drake, Bad Bunny, and Kendrick Lamar released new albums, smartphone usage in general spiked by 40%, with traffic fatalities in the US also increasing by 15% on the same days. 

The study also accounted for other potential factors, including Fridays - when new music is typically released - being a day when people go out and drink, plus holidays and heavy travel periods. Still, it found that “fatalities remained elevated on album release Fridays compared with the Fridays before and after”.

Fatalities associated with album releases were more common among sober drivers and on days with better weather. They suggested that drivers are more likely to turn on “distracting high-energy, positive-emotion, danceable, and fast-tempo music” when the weather is better. 

It also found that fatalities were "significantly more pronounced among single-occupant vehicles" on album release days, suggesting that a passenger may help reduce driver distraction, as the passenger may manage the music instead of the driver. 

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