Most Dangerous Colours for Your Car

I've done a lot of driving in my day, and I thought mayhem found me most often in grey or silver cars. Turns out I was wrong. Even worse, we may not be safe in Ferraris.

Fashionistas know that some colours look better with certain skin tones. Red-haired ladies gala would never be caught dead at charity galas in plum-coloured dresses. They know that some combinations are a fashion accident waiting to happen.

Is the same true of automobiles? Can the colour of your car impact its safety?
Yes, say researchers at Australia's Monash University. The hue you choose for alters its likelihood of getting hit.

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And what's the most dangerous colour? I've done a lot of driving in my day, and I've believed that mayhem found me most often in grey or silver cars.

Turns out that's wrong. The most dangerous colour is the one that ranks lowest on the visibility index. Black.

Black, the Most Dangerous Car Colour

As the owner of a black Volvo V70 wagon (hold the jokes), I'm flagrantly unsurprised. I've several death's-door escapes over the years in that car. Although we refer to black as a colour, it's actually colour's absence. That's the reason black seats get so hot in the sun--instead of reflecting sunlight, they absorb it.

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The Monash study comprised police crash data from Victoria and Western Australia of vehicles built between 1982 and 2004--a whopping 850,000 accidents. The colours were broken down into 17 "danger" categories.

White, the Safest Car Colour

Herbie the Love Bug would be happy to that he belongs to an elite stratum, although not at elite as the Mercedes GLK you see here. The safest cars on the road today are white.

The correlation between vehicle colour and crash risk was highest during daylight hours, when coloured cars were in an average of 10 per cent more accidents than did white cars. As my now-deceased silver Pontiac 6000 LE taught me, driving a car the colour of the road is never the best idea in low light. Surprise meetings of equal forces are best left for the checkout line at a Boxing Day sale--not the middle of an intersection.

Red, a Dangerous Colour? Really?

One surprise was the "dangerous" rating for red. For many of us, it is the most visible colour in the spectrum. (Its near cousin orange, after all, is put on hunting vests.) But not all people see red the same way, especially in the morning and evening. When sunlight is weak, red loses its chromatic pop. You may stand out from the crowd during the day, zipping around town in a fire-engine-red 599 GTO, but once the sun sets, you're as visible as every other shmoe in a $400,000 Ferrari.

Car Colours, from Safest to Most Dangerous

white (safest)
pink
maroon
yellow
blue
cream
mauve
red
green
gold
brown
fawn
silver
orange
grey
black (most dangerous)