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Yesterday in a 10 minute period,I had two cars start to pull out of side roads in front of me,another start to reverse out of a side road and then,to finish it or me off,someone tried to reverse over me in a car-park.Is it because my car is black.It was full daylight.
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We once had a dark metallic grey ( stone gray) car and it was really `road coloured` there were two incidents where this was clearly the issue in drivers pulling out on me.
No, I think black has good contrast in daylight ( we have one) just bad luck IMHO.
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I've got a black car. Might as well be invisible! I use lights almost all the time. I wouldn't have another - too hot in summer, can't find it in dark car parks.
Mind you, seems to have been a spate of people pulling out in front of me in the dark recently, so maybe it's just bad driving.
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RichardW
Is it illogical? It must be Citroen....
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I think cars are getting harder to see. Especially at the 'grown-up' end of the market, most of the colours you're offered are effectively shades of grey, some with a slight blue, green or brown tint. For example, the famously safety-conscious Volvo V70 is offered in 15 colours; yes, you can have it in non-metallic red or white, but no-one takes it that way for fear of the consequences at resale time. You can have plain or metallic black, two shades of metallic silver, or eight pearlescent colours that are either dark and muddy (red, green, purple, blue) or greyish (green, gold, blue and, er, grey).
Dark cars without lights are hard to spot on tree-lined rural roads; silvery-grey ones disappear on motorways in drizzle or murky winter light. Mid-grey cars are, as someone else has commented, tarmac coloured. I'm generally happiest in a car that's a definite - not necessarily bright - shade of metallic blue, like the Cosmic Blue of my last Saab, or the Brilliant Blue you can have on a small Volvo but not a big one. This is partly because I like blue cars, but also because there is very little blue in nature, so our eyes and brains naturally pick out blue objects. (I'm over-simplifying but you get the idea.)
I suspect market trends have something to do with this. Twenty years ago, two thirds of new cars went to companies for reps and the like, who got, if they were lucky, to choose red, white or blue, so there were plenty of conspicuously coloured cars around. Now everyone gets a choice - and everyone chooses the same!
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Don't get me started. Black or white or silver = boring.
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I think cars are getting harder to see.
And harder to see out of. Those enormous A-pillars stuffed with airbags, etc.
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IIRC yellow is the colour which is picked up quicker by other drivers.
But drivers of black or dark coloured cars who seem unable to switch their lights on at lighting up time are, frankly, a menace to everyone else on the roads.
The observation arises because I'm currently driving around 19 miles each way from around 4-15pm to visit my other half in hospital and, apart from the above crackpots, there are also those with at least one main light not working front or rear or who insist on having fog lights blazing away who create considerable difficulties for other road users on narrow, unlit country roads.
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What\'s for you won\'t pass you by
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But drivers of black or dark coloured cars who seem unable to switch their lights on at lighting up time are, frankly, a menace to everyone else on the roads.
Hear, hear!
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We too have a black car but with all the humps and trafiic calming around here we have to go so slowly it is possible to have have swmbo walk in front with a red flag.
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We too have a black car but with all the humps and trafiic calming around here we have to go so slowly it is possible to have have swmbo walk in front with a red flag.
you could get an interesting variance with 'road rage', two women beating hell out of each other with red flags
there must be a site somewhere for that sort of thing......
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Some 18-20 years ago I was teaching near Farncombe in Surrey. There was a 'stealth' Morris 1100 in the village - sprayed with a black flock finish,-looked like black velvet. In the dark only the the grille and headlights showed (like the Cheshire Cat's smile!) Totally invisible otherwise, and I should think, an accident waiting to happen...
P.
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A 'stealth' Morris 1100 - thanks for the best laugh I've had since about 1980! :-)
Incidentally, I once had an 'oyster metallic' (paleish metallic beige) Austin Princess and that seemed to be more or less invisible to everyone else. Shame it wasn't invisible to me as well, but that's another story...
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I can never understand why everyone in the UK likes grey cars, so dull, boring and plain. Still each to their own I suppose.
I've never owned a black car so it's interesting to hear the problems with people pulling out. Personally I like to do my own thing and hate to follow the crowd. Currently I have a red audi A4, other drivers allways seem to see me ok. Or maybe they are just better drivers round here....
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As the owner of a black car the only problem I find is keeping it looking clean, wash it & the next day its back to being dirty again.
Never noticed a problem with people not seeing it & pulling out into my path.
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So many cars now are awfully 'monochrome' - silver or black with grey or black trim. Very dreary.
Some years back the BT vans were painted in a grey colour (when they had the logo of the man blowing a horn). Up in Scotland, on a foggy day, I nearly drove straight into one. It was parked at the base of a telephone pole, no lights, and merged perfectly into the fog. I didn't see it until about 3 metres away and just missed hitting it. Stupid colour to paint a vehicle.
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My favourite colour Aprilia, a couple of shades darker.
I like it because it's invisible.
Stupid yourself.
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My favourite colour Aprilia, a couple of shades darker. I like it because it's invisible.
Hmm. Now what would a psychologist make of that...?
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Post office telecoms went from green vans to orange in the sixties so as to make vehicles that worked at the roadside conspicuous. Painting them grey was a triumph of marketing over function.
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Nice one P. Mason! I learned to drive in the 1960s in my mum's white Morris 1100 - maybe that's how I survived!
Did I see somewhere that white is coming back into fashion? Every time I've bought a new car, the salesman has advised against it on the grounds of eventual resale value - the impression being that a white car is a real clunker. Maybe that's due to change, and white will be the new black....
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Yes, white is back in fashion. I've seen a lot of fords lately in white, fiestas and foci, and have to admit they do look good in white.
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Just remember the eye sees objects by the light they return/reflect to it from what is light incident on it. Mat black reflects no light and so it is invisible. You 'see' that black because it is a missing part in the overall picture. It is 'visible' only because of what surrounds it. It absorbs all the incident light and a lot of the heat.
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An interesting fact about colour and visibility is that a red/orange coloured car will appear almost white under orange(mercury vapour) lamps. The rule seems to be that the closer the colour of the light to the colour of the illuminated object, the lighter the object will appear.
P.
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Mercury vapour emits blue light. Sodium emits a sort of orange.
These discharge lamps are almost single colour lamps (the electron band gap of the gas) and emit only a very few spectral lines. If a line colour is close to the colour of a surface being illuminated that surface will appear brighter simply because it is able to reflect the line.
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An interesting fact about colour and visibility is that a red/orange coloured car will appear almost white under orange(mercury vapour) lamps. The rule seems to be that the closer the colour of the light to the colour of the illuminated object, the lighter the object will appear. P.
Thirty years ago we lost my Dad's red Granada parked on street in Leeds; eventually we spotted the beige one with "our" registration!
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Thanks for the correction, BuzzBee,- I used to know the difference between mercury and sodium vapour lamps!
P.
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I'd say white is only fashionable with big wheels, a bodykit and a big engine and only looks good if it is immaculately clean.
Clean and shiny Focus ST in white - cool.
Dirty Focus LX - photocopier salesman doing 40k miles per year. Not cool.
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