I was trying to think of an example of a belief, widely held by even otherwise sensible people, that probably has no good reason behind it; I found myself thinking about the old prejudice about driving a green car – which was considered by some to be a very unlucky thing to do, just asking for trouble, even death. My father, not a fanciful man, believed this
Does this superstition still hold British drivers in its grip? I came across some very useful figures from the SSTM, Motor Industry Facts 2011
Green does not figure in the top five colours for the UK in 2011 – our roads are virtually dominated by silver or blue cars which account for almost half of all 31 million of the darned things.
Oddly, ten years ago green did figure in the top 5, with 11% of the total. Back then however red & blue were the dominant colours, virtually half the mere 27.8 million on the road.
It was quite pleasing to see that this year red cars make up 12% of the total – gratifyingly close to the estimate of 10% from my very unscientific survey of last month.
