According to car repair organ of choice Bodyshock magazine it’s Time to mute car karaoke. Mistakenly assuming this headline was the bold-faced preface to an anti-Cordon diatribe, Bankstone News was all set to agree wholeheartedly. But no: in a move of positively Talibanesque performing arts proscription, Bodyshot magazine was in fact proposing an all-out ban on people singing along to music in their cars.
What fresh insanity is this, Bankstone News sputtered and grumbled over a steaming mug of its weekday-mornings beverage of choice (Barleycup with a generous shot of Tesco’s Value Cognac, if you must know).
The ban-happy car-fixer’s journal claims singing should be outlawed on the flimsy grounds that one in five drivers told some survey that music was one of the things distracting them when they had “or just avoided” an accident. This compared with a possibly euphemistic one in four citing ‘mobile phones’ as the main contributor to contributory distraction.
Bankstone News’ faith in the poll’s findings – not exactly reinforced by the information that it was carried out by the bizarrely named www.VultureCodsProd.co.uk – was further eroded by the claim that in-car musical distraction is caused by a cadre of just 10 ‘artists’.
Yes, that’s right: when asked what they’d been listening to when they had “or just avoided” an accident, Vulture Cods’ interviewees cited Adele in 18% of cases and Justin Beaver in 17%, with a further eight acts including Sia, Slip Knot, Rianna and Drake (no mention of Queen, mind), accounting for the entire remainder of accidents caused “or just avoided”. On which basis, there’s clearly no need for a blanket ban on singing along to music in cars, merely a nationwide prohibition of Adele, Beeper et al.
But the case for that strangely appealing proposal sadly depends on the Vulture Cods survey not being a load of old b*ll*cks. The chances of this being the case appeared to recede to approximately zero, however, when Bankstone News read on to learn that, when asked why they had had “or just avoided” an accident while listening to Aduhwl, Beaver or whoever, no fewer than 43% of respondents replied, and we quote, “I was singing and dancing when I should have been focusing on the road”.
It was at that point that the urge to say ‘hmmm’ finally took an irresistible hold on your old pal Bankstone News and we trumped off to fetch another Barleycup Plus to revive the flagging spirits of this sorely tested newshound.
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