rkozono

I am interested in either the Anthrocite or Silver TL, but the news article below has swayed me to get the Silver color.

December 19, 2003
LONDON (Reuters) - Silver colored cars are less likely to be involved in a crash causing serious injuries, New Zealand scientists said Friday.
About 3,000 people die in road traffic accidents around the world each day but researchers at the University of Auckland said the risk of being injured in a silver car was less than in cars of other colors.
"Silver cars were about 50 percent less likely to be involved in a crash resulting in serious injury than white cars," Sue Furness and her colleagues said in a report in The British Medical Journal.
The researchers studied the impact of car color on the risk of a serious injury in a study of more than 1,000 drivers in New Zealand between 1998 and 1999.
About half the drivers had been involved in a crash in which one or more occupants had been admitted to hospital or died while 571 had not had crashes and acted as a control group.
After taking into account factors such as the age and sex of the driver, the use of seat belts, the age of the vehicle and the road conditions, color still had an impact.
The researchers said there was an increased risk of a serious injury in brown cars and the odds were also higher for black and green cars.
They did not explain why car color has an influence but said previous research suggested that white or light-colored cars are less likely to be involved in a crash than cars of other colors.
"Increasing the proportion of silver cars could be an effective passive strategy to reduce the burden of injury from car crashes," Furness added.

need4spd_RENAMED

Yes, I had read that light colored cars, specifically white being the best, had the least amount of accidents due to thier high visiability, especailly at night where light reflects off of them and not off the darker cars, so that they are seen better at nigth.

Even during the day, dark colored cars are hard to see due to thier low color contrast with it's surroundings.

huskerfan

I read the study and it wasn't clear that they took into consideration the buyers choice of color. For example, IMO younger more aggressive drivers are likely to opt for colors like black or red, whereas, silver or beige is more likely to be the color choice of middle age or older drivers. Therefore, the accident statistics could be skewed by the color choice of the drivers and their driving habits. People who choose more conservative colors may be less aggressive drivers and therefore involved in fewer accidents. It's clear that colors that are more visible probably help in accident avoidance but that may not be the only or most significant factor.

BuddySol

I always heard that White and especially Silver cars were accident prone in fog/overcast and/or snow conditions as well as at dusk, low level light conditions. Even tho, every day fog, overcast, and/or snow doesn't exist, they are usually the least visible in those conditions since they tend to blend in with the background as well as pavement, more so than any other color. Most studies consider "lime-green" as the best color for a vehicle, and have often suggested emergency crews to use "lime-green" instead of red. Since red is often percieved as black at night and people have poor peripheral vision with cars in shades of red. But whatever, it shouldn't matter what color car you have, you should be aware of your surroundings. Car color shouldn't matter. You also got to realize, that there are countless other studies that say other colors are the safest. You shouldn't just place your choice on one study, should research more.

fuque

The study I want to see is the one which determines which colors attract the most attention from cops.

IOW, if you had an 8-lane road and 8 TLs, one of each possible color, driving side-by-side at the exact same speed (say 85MPH), which color would get pulled over?

That's the color I want to buy.

pcinoc

Isn't it Arrest me RED or Officer Yellow??

XPLORx4

Statistical surveys should always be examined at the level of their source data. As huskerfan noted, buyer preference for particular color choice was not factored in.

I remember one survey a few years ago showed that white cars were more likely to be pulled over by law enforcement officers than red cars, contradicting the popular notion that red cars attract more attention and are often driven by more agressive drivers. Of course, what the survey didn't look at was the fact that there are substantially more white cars on the road than red, which skews the data quite a bit.

Also, do you know why "More dentists recommend Oral-B over any other toothbrush"? It's because Oral-B gives more free samples to dentists!

XPLORx4

The one that gets pulled over is driven by the guy that sees the cop in his rearview mirror LAST!

1SICKLEX

Dude, if your scared to wreck or crash, just get a Volvo, that is what scared people do.