Car Color & Crash Risk
Poor visibility can easily lead to car accidents in Weatherford, TX. Factors like bad weather, poor lighting, and glare can prevent a driver from spotting your vehicle in time to avoid a collision. You might also wonder whether the color of your car can affect visibility. In other words, are car color & crash risk related?
This argument is most likely to be asserted as a defense. Specifically, a negligent driver may try to shift at least part of the blame for a crash to you because of the color of your vehicle. It can be frustrating to be blamed for an accident you didn’t cause, but our team has over 25 years of combined experience fighting against such tactics.
A Weatherford car accident lawyer from Stephens Law Firm, PLLC has strategies for challenging this defense and keeping the focus on the negligent driver’s actions. Call us today at (817) 409-7000 to schedule a free consultation about your case.
How Stephens Law Firm, PLLC Can Help After a Car Accident in Weatherford, TX?
Our Weatherford personal injury lawyers have been difference-makers for injured people in Texas for years. We have a lengthy record of success, with hundreds of millions of dollars in settlements and court verdicts recovered for accident victims like you.
When you get injured in a crash caused by another driver’s careless or wrongful actions, our Weatherford personal injury attorneys can do the following to support your case:
- Analyze your situation and explain potential legal solutions
- Assemble evidence for your insurance claim
- File a claim with the other driver’s insurer and fight for a fair payout
- Litigate against the at-fault driver if their insurer refuses a settlement
An insurance company could try to deny your claim by blaming the color of your car. Schedule a free consultation with one of our Weatherford car accident attorneys to learn the arguments we can use to overcome this defense.
Does Car Color Affect Crash Risk?
Researchers are trying to find out whether certain car colors increase the risk of a collision. They use statistics to try to determine whether a car of a specific color is more likely to be in a crash. However, these studies paint a contradictory picture:
University of Auckland Study
A study at the University of Auckland examined several hundred crash reports and controlled for factors such as the time of day and the weather during the collision. The researchers concluded that color does impact crash risk. More importantly, they found that silver cars are always safer than other colors.
Monash University Study
Another study at Monash University expanded the dataset by looking at hundreds of thousands of accident reports in Australia. The researchers agreed that color affects crash risk, but they reached a contradictory conclusion. Specifically, they found that silver cars are always riskier than cars of other colors.
University of Dayton Study
Researchers at the University of Dayton also reviewed thousands of crash records with a different scope than previous studies. Instead of examining the color of both cars, researchers examined only the color of the vehicle driven by the person not at fault. In other words, this study excluded the color of the at-fault driver’s car.
The researchers argued that the car that caused the wreck was irrelevant to determining crash risk because the visibility of that vehicle was not at issue. By adjusting the dataset and using a different statistical model, these researchers determined that car color is unrelated to crash risk across all conditions. In other words, no specific car color is always more prone to being hit.
This study had an important caveat, though. The researchers acknowledged that some colors may be more difficult to see in certain conditions. For example, navy blue cars might be less visible than white cars at night. When averaged across all conditions, every color had the same statistical crash risk.
Liability for Crashes in Poor Visibility Conditions
When a driver asserts a defense based on the victim’s car color, the victim’s attorney has two potential counterarguments. First, they can call an expert witness to testify about car color and crash risk. However, courts only admit expert testimony that is reliable and repeatable. Since reputable scientific studies have produced conflicting results, they are not considered reliable.
Second, a driver is not absolved of liability simply because they assert that the victim’s car was difficult to see. If conditions were poor, the driver should have exercised extra care by slowing down, leaving more distance between other cars, or pulling over and waiting for conditions to improve. If the driver did not adjust to the conditions, they could be liable for the crash.
For example, suppose a driver rear-ended your car in a rainstorm. The driver claims that your gray car was difficult to see because the heavy rain reduced visibility. However, driving a gray car in a rainstorm does not constitute negligence on your part. Instead, the other driver is negligent for driving too fast and following you too closely.
Contact Our Weatherford Car Accident Lawyers for a Free Consultation
Blaming car color for a crash is usually only a distraction from the real cause: negligent or dangerous driving. Contact Stephens Law Firm, PLLC for a free consultation to learn how our Weatherford car accident lawyers stand up to insurers to fight for fair compensation.
