This week's British Medical Journal brings us news that could make us all a bit safer in the year to come. It appears that silver cars are much safer than other colors, to the point where they are 50% less likely to be involved in a crash resulting in serious injury than white cars.

The authors, who conducted their study in Auckland, New Zealand between April 1998 and June 1999, noted, in passing, that car crashes kill 3,000 A DAY worldwide. I just did the math: that's 1,095,000 people a year. A million people a year, and we consider this an acceptable loss. Amazing.

Color vs. safety came out like this:

brown, black, green - most dangerous colors

white, yellow, grey, red, blue - intermediate

silver - safest color

Of note, the dangerous group - black, brown, and green - are 5 times likelier to be involved in injury-producing crashes. The authors have no explanation for their findings, although the many online responses to their article are full of ideas.

London's Metropolitan police force is switching from white to silver cars because it can get more for silver cars when it trades them in. After reading this paper, they'll be very pleased with their decision, I'm sure. "Hi Yo Silver, Away"