Yellow taxi cabs have significantly fewer accidents than cabs of a darker hue, according to research that scientists say could end up saving lives and money.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A study published Monday in the journal PNAS showed canary yellow cabs in Singapore were nine percent less likely to get into fender-benders or serious smash-ups than taxis that were deep blue.<\/p>\n
\u201cYellow taxis are safer to travel in because yellow is more visible than blue,\u201d lead author Teck-Hua Ho, a professor at the National University of Singapore, told AFP.<\/p>\n
Accident rates diverged even more at night, probably because street lighting accentuates the contrast, he said.<\/p>\n
The findings \u201cshould play a major role in determining the colours used for public transportation vehicles,\u201d the study concluded.<\/p>\n
While this might seem like common sense, up to now there has been scant scientific evidence that dark-coloured cars are more dangerous.<\/p>\n
To test their hunch that colour matters when it comes to safety, Ho found a real-world laboratory in his own backyard.<\/p>\n
The fleet of Singapore\u2019s largest cab company, it turned out, was divided between light- and dark-toned vehicles.<\/p>\n
The researchers compared accident records covering a 36-month period for more than 4,000 yellow and 14,500 blue cars belonging to the company.<\/p>\n
To make sure there was no discrepancy in driver skills, they also analysed background data and work histories of 3,341 randomly selected professional cabbies.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome drivers also had experience driving taxis of both colours, and we showed that they had higher accident rates when they drove blue taxis,\u201d Ho told AFP.<\/p>\n
The risk, they found, is especially dangerous for the drivers.<\/p>\n
Over a typical, 40-year career, a cabbie in a dark-toned vehicle will, on average, get into three additional accidents, 34 instead of 31.<\/p>\n
Any of those extra smash-ups, of course, might be fatal \u2014 for the driver or the passengers.<\/p>\n
The Singapore taxi company\u2019s 16,700 cars could avoid 900 accidents per year if the entire fleet were painting yellow, the researchers calculated.<\/p>\n
Assuming an average repair cost of $US 700 (670 euros) per car and a down time of six days, switching colours would also generate annual savings of $US 1.4 million (1.3 million euros).<\/p>\n
The Yellow Cab Company of Chicago set what was to became a global trend in 1907 after commissioning a study on what colour would be most visible for people trying to hail a cab.<\/p>\n
During the first two decades of the 20th century, almost all cars plying city streets were black.<\/p>\n
Yellow cabs spread across the United States, most famously in New York City, where they remain an icon and an institution to this day.<\/p>\n
As often happens in science, Ho and his colleagues did not set out to study the link between colour and car crashes.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were engaged in a general study on the accident rate of taxi drivers,\u201d ho explained by email.\u2014AFP<\/p>\n
Image: AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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