The choice of CD for a long car journey has long been the cause of family friction. But new research has revealed that which song drivers listen to can even influence how safe they are on the roads. Among the top ten safest songs to drive to are Come Away With Me by Norah Jones, I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing by Aerosmith and Tiny Dancer by Elton John. Each of the songs have an optimum tempo of a song for safe driving, mimicing the human heartbeat at around 60 to 80 beats per minute. The study, conducted at London Metropolitan University, also revealed the type of songs that cause motorists to drive dangerously. Unsurprisingly, music that is noisy, upbeat and increases a driver’s heart rate can be a deadly mix. Fast beats cause excitement that can lead people to concentrate more on the music than on the road and to speed up to match the beat of the song. Genres of music were also measured during the experiment and revealed variations between male and female drivers. Hip-hop made a female driver drive far more aggressively, breaking harder and accelerating faster, than her male counterpart. The heavy metal playlist caused the fastest driving among males in the group while the dance playlist had the same effect among women. The male and female drivers who listened to the classical playlist drove the most erratically. The experiment involved eight people driving 500 miles each using the confused.com MotorMate app, which monitored driving behaviour through GPS technology.

The top 10 safest songs to drive to are:
1. Come Away With Me – Norah Jones
2. Billionaire Feat. Bruno Mars – Travie McCoy
3. I’m Yours – Jason Mraz
4. The Scientist – Coldplay
5. Tiny Dancer – Elton John
6. Cry Me a River – Justin Timberlake
7. I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing – Aerosmith
8. Karma Police – Radiohead
9. Never Had a Dream Come True – S Club 7
10. Skinny Love – Bon Iver
– telegraph.co.uk