best poet bestpoet.com nz new zealand brian john evans - FEW WILL PRINT THE SAFEST CAR COLOUR

Our peoples' cars - many sooty black-
Our obese folk - many tired, many slack:
Supersized, they preen in funeral black-
Blackened car windows, blind as a bat-
Speeding - quite camouflaged - excuses pat-
Down bloodstained roads tarred black:
Black sunglasses scream "consumerism attack!"
We could cure our black-colour blight:
Paint our roads all background white! (joke)
Or at least switch on, our cars' white lights,
Get slim, suck Omega-3, then kilos-light-
"Get safe family-cars - half yellow, half white!"
We lose whanau, because black is right
On car adverts; since newspapers are white-
Few will print the safe car colour - white;
Let's solve this shocking lethal oversight!
There is a law that starts us up this hill:
It simply says "Thou shall not kill."

Silver not safe car colour warns Monash expert 31 October 2007

Monash University Accident Research Centre's Dr Stuart Newstead is warning against the increased prevalence of silver coloured cars on our roads, which are less safe than other colours.

Leading Monash University Accident Research Centre (MUARC) researcher Dr Stuart Newstead has warned that the surge in popularity of silver coloured vehicles on Australian roads presents an increased crash-risk.

Dr Newstead is the author of the recent Vehicle Colour Study, conducted by MUARC, which found that white is the safest car colour.

The study found that black cars are most likely to be involved in an accident, with a 12 per cent higher crash risk than white vehicles, but Dr Newstead believes the study's finding that silver cars had a ten per cent higher crash risk than white should be of concern given the high volume of silver vehicle sales.

Recent statistics show that silver makes up around a third of new vehicles sold in Australia, with white at 20 per cent and black 10 per cent.

It is reported that fashion, asset protection (re-sale value) and prestige are some of the factors driving the silver surge.

"It concerns me greatly that silver has now surpassed white as the most popular choice for new vehicles," Dr Newstead said.

"The safest car colour has now been replaced by one of the least safe."

Dr Newstead said that silver gets easily lost in the road environment and is a factor in higher-severity crashes.

"Even in good conditions, silver has low contrast with the road environment," he said.

"That lack of visibility is even worse in fading light or cloudy and wet conditions. Less visibility means less time for other drivers to react to an impending accident situation, which leads to more crashes and higher severity crashes for drivers of silver cars."

Dr Newstead believes people who drive silver cars should be aware that they may not be seen as quickly by other motorists and make their vehicle more visible.

"People need to think about making their silver cars more visible by installing daytime running lights or driving with their headlights on," he said.

"I hope, though, that ultimately safety will triumph over fashion and we will see more people selecting white as their car colour."

How conspicuous is the colour of your car?

According to Daimler Benz, the ratings for
colour ranges from white - at 86% percent -
down to black, dark red and dark blue at 4%.

White

86%

Light Ivory

71%

Aqua Blue

71%

Yellow

70%

Pastel White

67%

Off White

65%

Maple Yellow

58%

Signal Red

44%

Autumn Beige

38%

Carnelian Red

21%

Red Green

21%

Beige Grey

20%

Grey

17%

Blue

Deep Blue

Dark Olive

Black

Dark Red

Dark Blue

Daimler-Benz say white is right

Daimler-Benz undertook research (before flourescent paints were used) that concluded that white was the easiest colour to be seen. White rated 86% in their tests while black, dark red and dark blue rated 4%.

So which colour is safest?

Many people think that particular colours are safer because they are more visible but it isn’t as simple as that.

The visibility of cars depends on the weather, road conditions the landscape and the time of day.

Generally bright and brilliant colours are much better than dark colours because they reflect a lot more light and can be seen from up to four times the distance of vehicles painted a dark colour.

The US National Safety Council defined the safest colour as "one that is highly visible in the widest range of lighting, weather and vision conditions"²

The Safety Council noted that white is the most visible colour in uniform lighting, but it has low visibility on a light coloured road in bright sunlight and in snow and fog.

Colour affects distance perception

A University of California study³ found that the colour of an approaching car influences the driver’s judgement about how far away it is. Blue and yellow made distant objects seem closest. The grey shades made objects seem further away.