Highway Safety

As boom car drivers take to the streets, they appear to concern themselves more with disturbing the peace and impressing their peers, rather than highway safety. With windows rolled down, to increase the sound pressure levels and impress peers and secondary listeners, boom car operators enter one of the most dangerous places on earth - a highway…

Boom cars can interfere with emergency vehicles getting to their destinations. On 9/28/1999, the Daily Oklahoman reported about a girl "who died in an ambulance because it was not able to reach the hospital quickly enough." "The driver was delayed by traffic. Paramedic Arnell Dean said he routinely has trouble with drivers getting in his way when he is rushing someone to the hospital. Dean added that today's cars are 'almost soundproof with loud stereos.'" (Source - MICHAEL WRIGHT'S BOOM CAR WEBSITE)

Boom car drivers actually experience a decrease in their peripheral vision, leading to car accidents. "Psychologists Helen Beh and Richard Hirst of the University of Sydney investigated whether loud music interferes with driving. They discovered that responding to objects intruding on their peripheral vision, people subjected to 85-decibel rock music were around 100 milliseconds slower than the other groups' in their study. Since may road hazards emerge from the periphery, drivers listening to loud music are less safe." (Source - FEELING THE MUSIC CAN BE DANGEROUS TO YOUR HEALTH, by Dr. Bart Billings)

High-intensity/low-frequency sound creates annoyance, irritability, and mood changes - thus, it could very well be a strong contributing factor in ROAD RAGE! Boom car owners often choose gangsta/porno rap as their music selection. These lyrics are filled with violence, defiance of authority, lack of respect for self and others, murder, suicide, drugs, abuse of women, etc. So, if you take a teenager with the raging hormones of puberty, combine them with angry, loud, aggressive lyrics and bass, it creates a dangerous recipe for road rage.

"Not only can listening to a car stereo potentially cause hearing loss, but it can be distracting and interfere with our ability to hear emergency sirens, she said. A siren is ineffective if it is not 8-12 dB louder than the background noise of a car. Listening levels often surpass the volume emitted from emergency sirens." (Source - HEARING CONSERVATION FOR COMMUTERS, by Kerri Waldowski)

In addition to blocking out the sounds of emergency vehicles, such as ambulances, fire engines, and police cruisers, the enormous sound levels from boom cars will block out car horns warning of danger, voices from pedestrians, children playing, school bus horns, etc.

Illegal street racing has been glamorized by the movies 'The Fast and the Furious' and its sequel. There is a strong link between illegal street racing and boom cars.

Loud car stereos can activate car alarms, causing further chaos. "In some jurisdictions, drug dealers advertise by cruising neighborhoods with the car stereo turned up loud." (Source - LOUD CAR STEREOS, by Michael S. Scott, U.S. Department of Justice COPS series)

At the WERNER ENTERPRISES web site are the following road rage facts:

"1. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) says about 66 percent of all traffic fatalities annually are caused by aggressive driving behaviors, such as passing on the right, running red lights and tailgating.

2. The cost of aggressive driving is immense. Over the past decade, aggressive driving has killed an average of 1,500 people each year, injured another 800,000 and cost the country roughly $24 billion in medical costs, property damage and lost time from work. (Source - USA Today)

3. Aggressive driving incidents have risen by 51 percent since 1990 and 37% of these incidents involved firearms. (Source: U.S. News and World Report)

4. At least 20 % of adults have hostility levels serious enough to be a health hazard. (Source - USA Today)

5. Since 1987, the number of miles driven in the United States has increased 35 percent, while the miles of pavement increased by only 1 percent. (source - NHTSA)"

"Car crashes are the number one killer of teenagers in America - more than 5,000 teens die each year. Inexperience, risk-taking, and driver distractions are some reasons why."

"You may think all the adjusting and changing is routine - after all, you've been doing it since you got your license. But inserting a CD or searching for a radio station makes you six times more likely to get into an accident than glancing at the fuel gauge or speedometer."

"Loud music, changing discs and tapes, as well as tuning the radio are also potentially deadly distractions when behind the wheel. And when a teen driver has friends in the car, the risk is even higher; the more passengers, the greater the chance of a serious crash."

"Think about it. Let's say you're going 60 miles per hour. If you look down for just two seconds to choose a CD or adjust the climate controls, you'll have traveled 176 feet blindly. That's more than half the length of a football field." (Source - SHELL, DEADLY DISTRACTIONS)

Manipulating a vehicle's CD/cassette player makes "car stereos eight times as deadly as dialing a cell phone." (Source - LIBERTARIAN PRESS RELEASES, 6/26/2001)

About 70 percent of the car audio market is "made up of males from 16 to 25 years old." (Source - AUTOMOTIVE AFTERMARKET INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION, IN TUNE WITH THE SPORT COMPACT PERFORMANCE MARKET, by Gary McCoy)

There are CDs that only produce bass sounds. The primary purchasers for these CDs are 16-25 years old. "I was told that the new digital sound technology on the CD's can produce lower bass frequencies than any musical instrument ever produced." (Source - FEELING THE MUSIC CAN BE DANGEROUS TO YOUR HEALTH, by Dr. Bart Billings)

"Between 25 percent and 50 percent of all crashes are due to driver inattention or distraction." (Source - ENJOYING THE SUMMER SAFELY: HOW TO DEAL WITH DISTRACTED DRIVERS, by Ann Job)

Driving safely is one of the most important jobs a person will ever do. It requires, in some cases, like foul weather or heavy traffic, extreme concentration. Driving is not a time to be entertained. It is a time to travel safely, and ensure others on the highway remain safe, as well. Boom cars, with their loud noise, are a deadly distraction to all drivers on the highway.

	Boom cars can interfere with emergency vehicles getting to their destinations. On 9/28/1999, the Daily Oklahoman reported about a girl "who died in an ambulance because it was not able to reach the hospital quickly enough." "The driver was delayed by traffic. Paramedic Arnell Dean said he routinely has trouble with drivers getting in his way when he is rushing someone to the hospital. Dean added that today's cars are 'almost soundproof with loud stereos.'" (Source - MICHAEL WRIGHT'S BOOM CAR WEBSITE)
Boom car drivers actually experience a decrease in their peripheral vision, leading to car accidents. "Psychologists Helen Beh and Richard Hirst of the University of Sydney investigated whether loud music interferes with driving. They discovered that responding to objects intruding on their peripheral vision, people subjected to 85-decibel rock music were around 100 milliseconds slower than the other groups' in their study. Since may road hazards emerge from the periphery, drivers listening to loud music are less safe." (Source - FEELING THE MUSIC CAN BE DANGEROUS TO YOUR HEALTH, by Dr. Bart Billings)
	High-intensity/low-frequency sound creates annoyance, irritability, and mood changes - thus, it could very well be a strong contributing factor in ROAD RAGE! Boom car owners often choose gangsta/porno rap as their music selection. These lyrics are filled with violence, defiance of authority, lack of respect for self and others, murder, suicide, drugs, abuse of women, etc. So, if you take a teenager with the raging hormones of puberty, combine them with angry, loud, aggressive lyrics and bass, it creates a dangerous recipe for road rage.
"Not only can listening to a car stereo potentially cause hearing loss, but it can be distracting and interfere with our ability to hear emergency sirens, she said. A siren is ineffective if it is not 8-12 dB louder than the background noise of a car. Listening levels often surpass the volume emitted from emergency sirens." (Source - HEARING CONSERVATION FOR COMMUTERS, by Kerri Waldowski)
	In addition to blocking out the sounds of emergency vehicles, such as ambulances, fire engines, and police cruisers, the enormous sound levels from boom cars will block out car horns warning of danger, voices from pedestrians, children playing, school bus horns, etc.
Illegal street racing has been glamorized by the movies 'The Fast and the Furious' and its sequel. There is a strong link between illegal street racing and boom cars.
	Loud car stereos can activate car alarms, causing further chaos. "In some jurisdictions, drug dealers advertise by cruising neighborhoods with the car stereo turned up loud." (Source - LOUD CAR STEREOS, by Michael S. Scott, U.S. Department of Justice COPS series)

	"Think about it. Let's say you're going 60 miles per hour. If you look down for just two seconds to choose a CD or adjust the climate controls, you'll have traveled 176 feet blindly. That's more than half the length of a football field." (Source - SHELL, DEADLY DISTRACTIONS)
Manipulating a vehicle's CD/cassette player makes "car stereos eight times as deadly as dialing a cell phone." (Source - LIBERTARIAN PRESS RELEASES, 6/26/2001)
	About 70 percent of the car audio market is "made up of males from 16 to 25 years old." (Source - AUTOMOTIVE AFTERMARKET INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION, IN TUNE WITH THE SPORT COMPACT PERFORMANCE MARKET, by Gary McCoy)