Whether you’re looking for BMW turbos or Range Rover turbos, the chances are the vehicle that you own is white. Or so says the Society of Motor Manufacturers & Traders (SMMT), with the organisation recently publishing the nation’s favourite car colours.
The SMMT said that one-fifth of new vehicle registrations are for white motors, which amounted to 564,393 units in 2015 – an increase of 2.2 per cent on the previous year. According to the organisation, neutral paint jobs continued to dominate, with black missing out on the top spot by just 0.6 percentage points.
Grey clinched third with 15.6 per cent of the market, while blue enjoyed its third year of growing demand to snatch fourth at 15.5 per cent. Nevertheless, blue has some way to go before regaining its late 1990s popularity, when it was the country’s top choice.
Green was the biggest mover on the rankings, as demand jumped 31.2 per cent over the 12-month period. Orange and mauve also saw double-digit growth, climbing 25.7 and 30 per cent respectively. However, these performances only managed to net them seventh, ninth and tenth places.
Car colour can have some unintended consequences on the road. For example, a 2007 Monash University study indicated that black vehicles have a 12 per cent higher crash risk than white cars, which were deemed the safest.
The prevailing opinion is that darker-coloured vehicles are harder to spot while driving, making them more likely to be involved in accidents. As such, the link between car colour and crashes is weaker during night-time conditions.