Bad news for the idiots who pack giant PA systems into their cars and drive around residential areas in the wee small hours with their music at insane levels. According to Wired News, there have been a number of cases where people who are too close to excessively loud music end up with collapsed lungs.

Update, 4th Sept

It’s funny how things don’t always sink in immediately. Re-reading this post this morning, I was thinking about a friend of mine who developed a collapsed lung a few years back; the doctors were baffled, because he was in ridiculously good physical condition. To this day, they’ve no idea what caused it – it’s just one of those things. But he used to tool around in a car with a Max Power-style stereo system, and I only experienced it once because the vibrations from the subwoofer made me feel sick. As the Wired News story points out, “If more doctors routinely ask pneumothorax patients about their exposure to loud music, the number of injuries attributed to blasting tunes will likely go up”.