Driver distraction is an important risk factor in motor vehicle crashes. Roadside billboards containingnegative and positive emotional content have been shown to have differential effects on driving, however,little is known about the impact of taboo information. Taboo information more reliably evokes emotionalarousal than other emotional information and can lead to greater attentional capture due to its inherent‘shock value.' We examined the potential for driver distraction from four different types of informationpresented on roadside billboards: highly arousing taboo words, moderately arousing positive and negativewords, and non-arousing neutral words. Results showed that taboo words were associated with better lanecontrol and memory recall compared to the other word types. Our findings suggest that taboo wordscaptured the most attention, but also led to a more careful driving style. One possible explanation is thatdrivers may be narrowing their attention to the driving task when highly aroused.
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