Car colour and Safety
Many road accidents happen at
night. A major reason for this is that certain colours are not easily
observed in poor light conditions. Thus cars painted in those colours are
not easily noticed by other drivers.
One solution, would be to
legislate that all cars be painted yellow or white. This would overcome
the problem of poor visibility due to car colour and thus reduce traffic
accidents related to it.
Yellow and White are the two
paint surfaces that reflect most light. For this reason, yellow is used as
a background on road signs and other important signals. Moreover, yellow
and white are not generally problems for the colour-blind.
The problem with this solution is
that people have strong preference with regard to colour. They like their
cars to have some distinctiveness. It is an emotional issue.
Although there may be emotional
resistance to this idea of painting all cars yellow or white, the life
saving benefits must surely outweigh the conditioned colour fads of
motorists.
