Date:         Wed, 10 Aug 94 17:44:47 CDT
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         Joel Walker <JWALKER@ua1vm.ua.edu>
Subject:      actual information: colors

for those of you who are tired of personal attacks and useless messages,
this contains some actual information. in the latest publication of my
insurance company, they have this little blurb:

The Color of Safety
Guess which color car is most visible: white, red, or black?
If you said white, you're right. A stufy reported by German automaker
Daimler-Benz showed people can spot a white car 12 times more quickly
than a black one, especially at night.

If you said red, you're in for a surprise. Red is difficult to see at
twilight and in fog. And very deep colors -- browns, grays and dark blues
-- and especially black and dark green are least visible of all.

the exception to the white-is-safest rule is in very cold climates, where
white vehicles are more difficult to see against a snowy landscape.

Other save vehicle colors: yellow and light shades of orange, gray and
blue.
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as i recall from several years ago, Volvo did a similar study and found that
the absolutely most visible car they had was an orange car with yellow doors
and a white top.

that business about dark green being invisible at night is putting it mildly.
anyone who has been in the army can tell you that you can literally walk
bang into an army truck or tank if you are not wearing night-goggles. not
only is the color invisible, but the dullness of the flat paint doesn't give
any reflective clues at all.

i'm thinking about doing something to my bus that i saw on tv: some of the
buses and vanagons in the cnn news blips have reflective tape (red/white)
on the rear of the bus (well, actually, a lot of cars had them, too). and
some had a strip of blue or white reflective tape along the side, between
the wheels. if i can find enough blue reflective tape, i'm gonna try it on
the sides.

the red/white tape for the back has been found (3M, of course! :) ... but the
cost has set me back a bit: the really good stuff, DOT approved, visible at
one mile, costs $190 for a 50-foot, 4-inch roll. it's meant for truckers to
use on their trailers (and will be required after some future date). they
claim it lowers the truckers insurance. wonder if we could get any discount?

joel