True or False?
False: The common belief that red cars attract more speeding tickets than cars of other colours, is a falsehood that has circulated for decades.
It’s said that the colour attracts the eye of police, so they notice them speeding more than other coloured vehicles, resulting in red car owners receiving a disproportionate share of citations.
An alternative theory states it may be caused by a color-initiated optical illusion that makes red cars appear to be going faster than they actually are. It’s also been suggested that perhaps the colour influences driver behavior. Because red is often associated with aggression, it’s believed to cause an increase in drivers’ breathing and heart rates, inciting operators to drive faster, without even being consciously aware of it.
Yet another line of thought, ties sports cars to the colour red, as it was one of their most popular colors. This line of reason suggests that if sports cars are ticketed more often, and the favourite sports car colour is red, then red cars would earn far more speeding tickets than vehicles of other colours. They’re all great theories, but none of them hold water, because red cars do not get ticketed more often than they statistically should.
Actually, in a 1990 study, it was found that white cars were ticketed less often than they should’ve been, suggesting that perhaps police tend not to notice white vehicles breaking the law. Gray cars were the biggest heat scores, getting a far greater share of speeding tickets than they statistically should have. On the flip side, silver cars seemed to get noticed the least, and as a result, got the smallest number of tickets out of all the colours.
