Silver cars are the safest on the road
 

Personally,I think that driving to the road conditions and wearing a seatbelt are more important but hey,what would I know?
And what if it's a silver Volvo that one drives?

(Silver cars are the safest on the road)

LINK
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994504

13:53 19 December 03

NewScientist.com news service

Silver cars are much less likely to be involved in a serious crash than cars of other colours, suggests a new study of over 1000 cars.

People driving in silver cars were 50 per cent less likely to suffer serious injury in a crash compared with drivers of white cars, the research in New Zealand found.

White, yellow, grey, red and blue cars carried about the same risk of injury. But those taking to the roads in black, brown or green cars were twice as likely to suffer a crash with serious injury.

Sue Furness, at the University of Auckland, led the study but says the team does not know why silver cars appear safer. "We think it may be due to a combination of light colour and high reflectivity," she speculates.

She suggests that increasing the proportion of silver cars on the road might provide a "passive strategy" to cut car crash injuries.

"If there's proof that certain colours are safer and easier to see in all road conditions that might be useful to people in terms of purchasing a car," says Roger Vincent, of the UK Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents. But he adds: "A lot of people will buy things purely on fashion."

Engine size

In their study, Furness and her colleagues took into account the engine size, make and age of the car, as well the sex, age, socio-economic status and ethnicity of the drivers. They also controlled for road conditions and ambient light conditions.
But Vincent says other factors could be important, such as the way people view different colours, how many miles the car has on the clock and the background being driven against.

The data was gathered from reports of road crashes in the Auckland area between 1998 and 1999. Silver cars made up about 11 per cent of the fleet analysed and were the fourth most popular car colour after white, blue and red.

Metallic finish cars, such as silver ones, are more expensive, but Furness does not believe this is an important factor. "From these controlled data it seems unlikely that the explanation for silver cars being associated with a lower risk of car crash injury is related to the price or 'quality' of the vehicle," she told New Scientist.

Journal reference: British Medical Journal (vol 327, p 1455)

Shaoni Bhattacharya

That makes no sense. I wanna know what the psychology behind this was?

Color does not equal safe. Safe car equals safe.

I think a safe colored car equals an unsafe colored driver
fuckin jerk
get on my nerves..
...
...
piss me off!

So.....I don't understand....

shiny cars reflect more light making them easier to see under most driving conditions....Is this the gist of the article????

WOW! simply amazing....wonder how much money went into this.

Next up...Fire hot; Water wet. Discuss.

I had a silver car. People were CONSTANTLY pulling out right in front of me. My theory is that it blended in with the color of the road. I never had this problem with my other cars which were red or black.

well yeah, actual silver(not the colour) is supposed to reflect about 95% of the light shone upon it
so it would be safe to assume that it would be easier to see someone in a silver car coming rather than another colour, especially in turning right on red situations and such

Wait...

Are you calling me a "fuckin' jerk"?

This must be the safest car in teh WORLD! :D

http://www.cardesignnews.com/autosho...uar-xj0368.jpg

It probably has a lot less to do with psychology than with optimal optical (!) effect. If you can see it with greater ease, you can avoid a collision with greater ease. It may "blend in" with the road during the daytime, but during the daytime anyone can see a silver car on the road to begin with; during the night time, however, the road's more akin to looking black in the distance. A silver car about to turn at an intersection at a distance to yourself... yeah, may end up beating out any other color as far as visibility goes. Ask James Dean what color the light pole was.

As far as YOU being a safer driver while in a silver car, no, I don't think that has anything to do with it.

A silver car would definetely blend in with the grey skies here in Washington, therefore making it a hazard.

Though the researchers controlled for the subject variables, could it be simply that cautious drivers CHOOSE to buy silver automobiles?

Keep in mind this is a correlational study and not a true experiment. There were no variables manipulated therefore it is impossible to determine causation.

This could just be a coincidence of over-analyzed data. Happens a lot in sports statistics. Ex. Player A scores most of his point between the 4th and 10th minute of the 2nd period. Could it be a coincidence that most of his goals occur then?
Might just be a coincidence.......take that into account.

Damn green mini van...I'm gonna die young.

Could it be a psychology-type thing? Say, people who buy bright-red cars are more likely to drive fast and recklessly? Are us silver people just safe and boring?

How the fuck does yellow car blend into the road?

I've got a silver car, and so far I'm safe... :knocks on wood:

Don't know about safety, but I do know this: my silver car broke a lot more than my new green car does. Also, I was hit 3 times in 1 year in the silver car. In the year I've had the green car, I haven't been hit once.

someone's gotta say it...

"Correlation Does Not Imply Causation"

The sad point is how much money did they waste on this study?

"may end up beating out any other color as far as visibility goes"

It would have less to do with blending into the road than reflecting oncoming headlights. Imagine you have a kid, he's just learned to ride his bike, and you have to figure out what kind of safety measures to give him. Obviously helmet and maybe some knee/elbow pads, but the question is this: Do you get him a silver reflector set or a (probably non-existent) yellow reflector set?

The fire dept did extensive studies and found the most visible colors were bright red and neon yellow. Those would be the safest colors to have, but the type of vehicle would have a lot to do with it also. And the behavior of the driver will have a lot to do with the safety also. Like has been mentioned, a lo t of money wasted again on a useless study.

I have a grey car and I've been in two minor accidents. I don't really drive fast or careless enough to get in a major accident anyways.

a car is only as safe as the person behind the wheel.

Umm right, intersting but that goes aginst everything that is founded in MN. The two most frequent cars colors (per capita) is White and Silver. Reason, they blend in with the snowbanks. I don't kid when I say that - I hope I can find the graph that was posted by a local TV station. It showed how the ammount of white and silver cars getting hit (on the reciving end) went up by five fold once we had snow on the ground. I'm not saying this is 100% accurate but it is noticiable if you pay attention.

DING DING DING DING DING

That's the first thing you learn in ANY area of science. I'm about ready to call "Sue Furness" a complete idiot and question why a university would even allow her to use it's name in conjunction with her absurd and preposterous assumption.

Yeesh.

Yeah, I think it all comes down to the driver and how aware/defensive they are. I can tell you this.... my wife has received more frivolous tickets in her silver car than ever before. I even got pulled over for no apparent reason - but didn't get a ticket.

I get the feeling that sporty colors like red and silver actually attract more attention.

Silver cars are safer because they blind people from the sun's reflection causing accidents. If you put on a silver pair of sunglasses though you should be good to go. It's only those with rose coloured glasses that have problems.