There are quite a lot of pervasive rumors that do the rounds when it comes to the question of car colors. Some, for instance, that certain colors of car will cost you more to insure? Another one — and the subject and focus of today’s blog — is on whether or not certain color cars are more likely to be pulled over compared to others. The urban legend says that red cars get pulled over more.

Well, is it true? If so, why do red cars get pulled over more? These questions and others we are going to explore in today’s blog.

Reality Check: Most Common Reasons for Being Pulled Over

Speeding

Most common of all are those who are exceeding the local speed limit, even by just a little. Even small excess can dramatically increase your braking distance, after all.

Equipment Problems

Broken tail lights, faulty brake lights, loose tail pipe, cracked windshield…the list goes on. There is a huge list of things police might feel they need to check. Broken equipment makes your car unsafe to be on the road.

Improper Use of Lanes

Chopping and changing lanes when you shouldn’t, driving the wrong way down a one-way street, using carpool lanes alone, using bus or cycle lanes…some people really feel as though they are a law unto themselves when it comes to choice of lanes.

Using Your Phone and Distracted Driving

The big modern killer on the road isn’t the car but the smartphone of the person driving it. People trying to text and drive, play games and drive, make social media posts and drive all put themselves and others in danger when they do.

Tailgating

Following too closely can result in accidents which at best disrupt the traffic and create jams, and at worst can hurt and kill people. Following too closely is among the most avoidable of all violations on the road, but people continue to break it and police look out for that.

Profiling

To be clear, we aren’t talking about racial profiling here, for which there is little of any real concrete evidence. Profiling more broadly does go on, however, such as if something about your car doesn’t match the registration info attached to the license plate, or if you’re driving erratically or with huge hesitation; if you start to act strange in the car as soon as you see a police car or patrol bike, and so on. There are reasons officers might ‘profile’ certain drivers in these ways.

Is There Any Connection to Color?

Interestingly, there are some statistics on what color car gets pulled over the most, but it’s not quite in line with what believers in the above-mentioned urban legend think. The real order is:

• Most pulled over: White
• 2nd – Red
• 3rd – Gray
• 4th – Silver

So, there you have it. It would seem that you are more doomed to be pulled over if you are driving a certain color, and that color is white. Even the conspiracy theorists and urban legend peddlers are close to being right, with red in a close second place. Why not blue, purple or green in any of these spots? Why is red the only vivid color in the list? Why do white, gray and silver get such a bad deal, but black cars appear to get off totally free?

There is some notion that it is the brightness of these colors and how they stand out, night or day, on the road that makes it more likely that police officers pull them over. This isn’t without reason, and the statistics seem to back it up, but more likely is that it’s a combination of this factor, and the fact that white, red, gray and silver are all in the top list for the most popular colors. More white cars get pulled over because a higher proportion of the market (about 24 percent) is made up of white cars.

The only color missing from this top list is black. Black cars make up about 23 percent of the US car fleet, so why aren’t black cars more commonly pulled over than red cars, which only make up 10.3 percent of all US cars? Perhaps there is something, then, in the theory that black cars and darker colors tend to slip by more often unnoticed while brighter colors like white, red, gray and silver are all more prominent.

Should You Consider Color When Buying a Car?

With this in mind, should you avoid getting a car in one of these colors? After all, they are apparently more likely to be pulled over. In fact, no. There’s a key element missing from the connections and analysis of car paint colors and how often they get pulled over, and that’s the reasons they get pulled over.

Let’s not forget that the reason anyone gets pulled over is likely one of the things we listed up above. If you keep your car in good order and drive within the rules of the road, there’s no reason the police should pull you over. For these reasons then, we shouldn’t be considering color when buying a car.

If we are considering the color of a new car, then we should only do it for reasons of personal taste and preference. We could also consider what we think would be a better color to maintain with wax and paint sealants in order to get a better deal when selling the car years down the line. Paint quality is also an important factor. Investing in a car that has durable and attractive paint that won’t easily flake, rust or speckle.

These are all good reasons to consider color, rather than whether or not you’ll get pulled over. If you ever do get pulled over, it’s because you broke a rule or have something wrong with your car, most likely. Sometimes that notification from a police officer is useful if you didn’t know you had a tail light out, or that your rear turn signals weren’t working properly.

Conclusion: Is it Better to Drive Noticed or Unnoticed?

It’s perfectly true that the color of car you choose will certainly affect how “noticed” you are on the road, both by police and by other people and drivers. There’s nothing in the law to stop you from investing in an original or resprayed color that you love, even if other people around you find it tacky and/or obnoxious. It’s your right to drive a car of your own color choosing. There may be some rules regarding things like reflectivity of the coating, but these are typically known to auto shops and they will most likely refuse to do any work that would render your car illegal.

Bright, vivid colors like yellow, luminous green, pink, metallic purple and others will always get you more noticed than plain-old white, black and red. If you like the attention, and you like the feeling of being unique from other drivers (while still being within the law, of course) then nothing should stop you choosing any outlandish color you can.

There’s a lot to be said for some of the more standard colors, however. You might think they’re boring and mass-produced, but don’t forget that they’re mass-produced for a reason, and that’s also because people buy them. A metallic silver, for instance, oozes class and sophistication, as does a nice glossy black, or a deep red. These colors may also reflect the brand, like Tesla’s signature red, or a Corvette’s signature blue and white. There’s equally nothing wrong with sticking with one of these more typical offerings.

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