Safest car paint colour: white (Australian study of 850k crashes). Avoid black!

[MetroMPG]

= safe car



= deathmobile

Drat - apparently I'm driving the worst colour (black), in terms of its contribution to passive safety.

Interesting study done in Australia ranks car colours vs. crash rate. I like the writer's opening:

What if there was one choice you could make when buying your next car that would substantially reduce your risk of collision?
What if that choice could be made regardless of what make and model you were considering? And what if it didn't have any effect whatsoever on vehicle performance, space, comfort, function or availability? And what if this special selection didn't cost one penny extra? For the sake of your safety and that of your family and passengers, wouldn't you jump at the chance?

The university study, covering 1982 - 2004 revealed that white is best, even when controlling for time of day and ambient light conditions.

% more collisions than white:
black - 12%
Grey - 11%
silver - 10%
Red - and blue were tied for fourth (% not given)

Interesting for those tempting fate by driving black cars:

When the sun was just rising or setting, black's edge on being the colour of doom jumped to an astounding 47 per cent, with grey landing at 25 per cent over white and silver at 15 per cent.

Also interesting is that white was NOT under represented in the sample. In fact white cars were more popular than any other colour in Australia in the period studied.

Source: Colour it safe

Actual study: http://www.monash.edu.au/muarc/reports/muarc263.pdf

[dcb]

That is interesting, because I somehow had it in my head that white was not good.

But in retrospect, it was based on only one experience:

I was in the left lane in a white escort, 4 lane surface streets, middle curb median, maybe 45mph, several inches of snow on the ground. I was passing a semi.

I was about midway up the trailer when the semi came into my lane. Pretty sure he didn't see me, coulda been for a variety of reasons, but I had (right or wrong) attributed it to being in a white car in the snow, the close call had etched it.

[cfg83]

MetroMPG -

That makes me happy, because that's my preference. My industrial design nephew also prefers white as a better way to "see" the lines of the car. I always assumed white was better for visibility.
My other choice would (obviously?) be Yellow.

CarloSW2

[cfg83]

dcb -

Originally Posted by dcb

...

I was about midway up the trailer when the semi came into my lane. Pretty sure he didn't see me, coulda been for a variety of reasons, but I had (right or wrong) attributed it to being in a white car in the snow, the close call had etched it.

Ahhhh, I have never lived in snow country.

CarloSW2

[Frank Lee]

Oh no i'm gonna die!!!!

[MetroMPG]

Dave: good point about white & snow. I'm betting there weren't a lot of snowy days in the Australian study! As an aside, do you remember if your lights were on?

An Ontario (including snowy driving) study lists white as tied with blue in 4th place for most crashes, with black leading (again) followed by grey (2nd) and red (3rd). But it's just raw figures and isn't weighted by vehicle colour as a proportion of the sample.

[MetroMPG]

Carlos: I wondered about yellow too. Quite a bit of study went into choosing yellow for emergency vehicles. Safer than red, I've read.

[Ryland]

I've also heard that safer drivers tend to buy cars that are white, silver and blue, middle aged people tend to go for red and teenagers like black.

[NiHaoMike]

I wonder if pink would be even better in terms of being seen by others. (Pink is commonly used to prevent tools from blending into the environment at worksites and getting lost.) Unfortunately, if it becomes the new trend, everyone would just think "another car" instead of paying special attention to it.

[Frank Lee]

Originally Posted by MetroMPG

Carlos: I wondered about yellow too. Quite a bit of study went into choosing yellow for emergency vehicles. Safer than red, I've read.

Yeah... I remember riding on ORANGE school busses!!!

They switched to yellow and I recall the big deal that was made of it, but safety studies proved yellow was more visible than orange.