Safe Speed Forums

Drivers get black mark for speeding
New research has revealed that drivers of black cars are the most likely to break the speed limit while at the other end of the spectrum, drivers of purple cars are the least likely.
Insurance expert elephant.co.uk looked at data from over 1.5 million motorists and found that motorists who drive black cars are 9% more likely than the average driver to have points on their licence for breaking the speed limit.
Drivers of grey cars were also found to be more likely than average to have speeding points on their license. Closely following black cars, drivers of grey cars are 8% more likely than average to have been caught speeding.
Brian Martin, managing director of elephant.co.uk, said, "We wanted to know why it is that drivers of black and grey cars appear to have more of a propensity to speed so we looked into more detail at the cars on our books.
"We found it didn’t necessarily correlate that black and grey cars would have bigger engines, so evidently for drivers of these coloured cars, the temptation to break the speed limit is simply too great whatever their engine size."
It’s not a colour you see as often as black or grey, but the research revealed that drivers of purple cars are proportionally the least likely to be caught speeding. In fact, as well as purple cars, it was the brighter, more conspicuous cars such as white, yellow and red that were found to be the least likely to have owners with a propensity to speed.
Drivers of purple cars are 18% less likely than the average driver to have a speeding conviction, motorists in white cars are 15% less likely than average and those in yellow and red cars are 14% and 13% less likely respectively. These are then followed by drivers of green, brown and blue cars with silver cars reflecting the average for speeding convictions.
Brian Martin continued, "With red cars 13% less likely than average to be caught speeding, it seems the urban legend that police officers play snooker when catching speeders is out of date. However, no matter what colour car you drive, my advice would be to drive within the speed limit at all times."
Issue date: 24-04-09

http://www.fancyacar.co.uk/car-insurance/vehicle-colour/

When you go out looking for a shiny new motor, you have lots of things to think about - fuel economy, practicality, equipment, added extras and of course price. One thing that usually only gets a slight consideration is colour. According to the AA only 3% of women and just about 1% of men think that colour is an important factor when buying a car.

Even if you are the type of person who would spend time considering the exterior colour, it is purely a matter of taste. Which is you favourite car colour? Should it be matt or metallic, should it be two-tone?

What people never consider is some colours are more dangerous to drive than others, some colours are involved in more accidents than others and some colours are not popular with insurance companies so they will cost you more to insure.

That little box on the insurance form that asks the colour of the vehicle is there for a reason, insurance companies know that there are more accidents, deaths and injuries in certain coloured cars above others.

Insurers have always had a dislike of sports cars that are red, the main reason for this is that they are the most popular combination for boy racers; sports cars look good for attracting girls and feeling like a macho race driver. And red psychologically is an exiting colour that says “speed” to younger male drivers, that’s why insurance companies don’t like them.

There is a pecking order in terms of accidents for regular car drivers when it comes to colour and accidents. Monash University Accident Research Centre performed an accident statistic study and discovered that white is the safest colour on the road.

Blue or red vehicles were involved in 7% more accidents than white cars, silver were more accident prone at 10%, grey are a little worse at 11% and with 12% more accidents than white cars, black was the worst offending colour.

Of more concern to insurers is that although silver is in the middle of the pack, it is fast becoming the colour of choice for new car buyers, with some companies offering four or five different silver variants, meaning that as many as a 30% of new cars are silver.

White is not particularly popular, because although it is the safest colour it also has the worst re-sale value because of its tendency to show dirt easily as well as marks and scratches.

Just to muddy the waters a little more, another study also found the link between car colour and accident rates. However it found that although silver cars were involved in fewer accidents than white cars, they were more likely to be involved in serious and fatal accidents.

The reason white or silver is better than black or other dark colours such as green (which appears black at night) is that they are harder to see, especially in dark or poor visibility situations, leading to more accidents for those colours over white and light coloured cars.

It just goes to show how people can show a relationship between practically anything and practically anything else if they try hard enough.
However, without a plausible mechanism, it remains just that - a statistical curiosity.

I propose another link - given that Monash and U of Adelaide are situated in Australia, it seems that 90% of dodgy research findings emanate from 'down under'.

There are quite a few studies from the Monash that do not back up the speed kills message, if you want to dismiss the ones you do not like you cannot use the 'good' ones either..