We’re a nation of music motorheads

Forget muddy fields, mp3 players, nightclubs or state of the art sound systems at home, a study of the in-car listening habits of 1,200 drivers by Vauxhall Motors reveals that the place Brits most like to go to indulge their personal music pleasures is their own car.

41% say their car is their favourite place to listen to music, twice as many as their home, (22%) in second place and 10 times as many as their iPod or mp3, (11%) away from the car.

We spend the equivalent to a year and a half of our life alone in our cars listening to music and one in three motorists (32%) admit to specifically taking their car out for a drive to indulge in secret music pleasures away from friends, family and partners.

The new research also found that one in five motorists (21%) admit they use their car for a sneaky fix of the popular trend of ‘guilty pleasures’ easy listening music by the likes of Lionel Ritchie and Celine Dion and 14% have a secret passion for heavy metal such as Motorhead and Metallica.

Planning is another high priority for Britain’s road rockers with 76% of people revealing that music preparation for car jukeboxing is a must before slipping behind the wheel for a long car journey.

It’s not always musical harmony as 78% of motorists say they’ve had their music changed by passengers. A quarter (26%) of men and fifth of women drivers (20%) believe it is bad etiquette for passengers to complain about their choice of music, explaining why so many of us like to take time alone with out tunes on the road.

Simon Ewart from Vauxhall Motors comments, “These results reveal just how much drivers enjoy the freedom to listen to what they really want to hear thanks to their car. Not even we anticipated the emerging trend of cars being the place to secretly stash your guilty pleasure songs. Vauxhall will have to look into creating hidden compartments to hide those forbidden tracks to keep your image intact.”