When it comes to choosing a car colour, we each have our preferences - but as a nation, there's one colour we favour above all. Can you guess what it is?
We had a look at all of the cars that are insured with Youi and ran some research on the most popular car colours. What we found was each state has its own preferences, as do certain age groups and genders. Most importantly, our research also revealed which colours are more likely to be involved in a collision, and which colour is the safest (that is to say, the colour that has been involved in the least amount of crashes).
Here are some fun facts that our data revealed!
Which colour is most likely to be in an accident?
When it comes to car colour and safety, it’s all about visibility. Our accident frequency research reveals that dark coloured cars are more likely to be in an accident than lighter coloured cars, likely because they are less visible to other drivers on the road. Grey coloured cars topped the list, followed by black and charcoal.
Which is the safest colour?
Interestingly, green is the safest car colour recording the lowest number of accident claims across Australia. This doesn't mean that if you buy a green car, you are less likely to have an accident. It simply tells us that green cars have been involved in the least amount of collisions, and this is more so a reflection of the driver than it is the colour of the car.
What colour is the most popular?
Australia-wide, white is the most popular car colour, with 30% of Aussies choosing it as their preferred hue. This could be due to many reasons, including its perceived visibility, the sheer availability of the colour by manufacturers and its higher resale value.
In addition to white, the next most popular car colours on Australia’s roads include:
- Silver - 19.44%
- Blue - 11.29%
- Black - 10.43%
- Grey - 8.02%
- Red - 6.81%
What are the preferences across different states?
Each state has its own flare for car colours, although they all agree on one thing - white is the top choice. Here are some other interesting insights we found.
- Tasmania has the highest percentage of white cars at 33.80% versus the national average of 30.45%
- Relative to other states, black cars are more popular in Victoria with 12.24% of our Victorian car policyholders insuring a black car, up from the 10.43% average across Australia
- 3.66% of our Tasmanian car policyholders have green cars, up from the national average of 2.68%
- Blue cars are most popular in the ACT compared to other states
What are the preferences amongst different ages and genders?
Preferences also vary amongst different ages and genders. Here's what we found:
- Female drivers are more than 6 times more likely to drive a pink car compared to males
- Drivers born prior to 1950, relative to other age groups, prefer gold, champagne and beige cars
- White is the most popular car colour across all genders and ages
- Compared to females, white is more popular for males relative to other colours (34.34% for males, 26.46% for females)
- Red cars have the second biggest relative difference for females, with 7.81% of females having red cars compared to 5.84% of males having red cars
- Females born prior to 1960 are nearly 40% more likely to own a red car with 9.45% of them insuring a red car, compared to an average 6.81% across both genders and the whole of Australia
- For females born on or after 1990, blue is a stand out relative to other ages (14.51% versus a national average of 11.29%)
- Black vehicles show a similar trend for both male and female, being most popular for drivers born between 1980-1990 but becoming less popular outside of this band
- Black is least popular for clients born prior to 1950, relative to other age brackets
Interested in more car stats? Read our other study on the most dangerous times on the road and most popular car collisions.
* Research note: Sample group Youi insured vehicles & claim accident frequency data 1/7/16 – 30/9/17
