-->Silver Colored Cars Safest, New Zealand Scientists Say
Fri Dec 19, 3:44 AM ET Add Health - Reuters to My Yahoo!



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.