I’ve definitely noticed crazier driving on Fridays (which is the day most albums are released). I think the author is confusing correlation and causation. The real reasons for increased speeding, reckless operation, distracted driving, etc. on Fridays is more likely due to payday, making plans with friends, and overall excitement for the weekend. Just 2 cents. But, sure… who doesn’t hit the accelerator a bit more when their favorite artist drops an album?
Presumably they could control for that by looking at the stats for Fridays when no major album releases. And they could probably check what they were listening to at the time as well. But I wouldn’t be surprised if you were right.
They seem to control for day of week:
Importantly, this study design permits adjustment for potential confounding factors that could be related to both album release timing and traffic fatality risk (e.g., albums tend to be released on Fridays) while still taking advantage of the otherwise exogenous variation in album release timing.
Edit: Direct link to full paper: https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w34866/w34866.pdf
I sure thought new albums came out on Tuesday when I was in high school and college, around the turn of the millennium. Am I misremembering that or did it change at some point?
You’re absolutely correct that albums used to be released on Tuesdays in the US. This changed in 2015 when Global Release Day was created. Let’s just blame Beyoncé for the traffic fatalities. 😂
You learn something new everyday (it’s me, I’m learning something new).
