Elderly can't see red cars

[snopes]

Comment: Red Cars---I was told by an eye doctor to never buy a red car
because as people get older they start to go color blind and the first
color they lose is red. This explains why so many older people run traffic
lights and he said that a red car "blends" in so they can't see you. (now
living in Florida this is important)

[damian]

I thought David Copperfield was brilliant when he made a fire truck disappear. Turns out I must be colour blind.

[ganzfeld]

I have no idea what the "doctor" was talking about. When older people have cataracts, the blue and green parts of the spectrum become difficult to distinguish. The yellowing of various parts of the eye also contributes to difficulty in distinguishing differences in the blue component of colors. In general, acquired color blindness doesn't involve a difficulty in distinguishing reds. In low light, reds can appear to be brownish or even black to anyone and this is probably more pronounced with some types of color vision problems associated with aging. The common red-green color discrimination problems are almost invariably inherited and completely unrelated to aging.

If you're going to be silly and avoid red cars for those people then you probably want to avoid greens, browns, pinks, etc, as well. Really, though, since most people with anomalous color vision can see your car as well as anyone no matter what color it is, you're better off worrying about your own driving than the color of your car.

[Sylvanz]

Originally Posted by ganzfeld

I have no idea what the "doctor" was talking about. When older people have cataracts, the blue and green parts of the spectrum become difficult to distinguish. The yellowing of various parts of the eye also contributes to difficulty in distinguishing differences in the blue component of colors. In general, acquired color blindness doesn't involve a difficulty in distinguishing reds. In low light, reds can appear to be brownish or even black to anyone and this is probably more pronounced with some types of color vision problems associated with aging. The common red-green color discrimination problems are almost invariably inherited and completely unrelated to aging.

If you're going to be silly and avoid red cars for those people then you probably want to avoid greens, browns, pinks, etc, as well. Really, though, since most people with anomalous color vision can see your car as well as anyone no matter what color it is, you're better off worrying about your own driving than the color of your car.

Wow Ganz, I'm so relieved red is one of my favorite colors and I was wondering how much longer I had to enjoy it.

P&LL, Syl

Does it also make your lights invisible? If not, then just drive with your lights on all the time.

[FloridaGirl]

My grandparents can see my mom's red car just fine, as can my 96 year old Nana.

[RivkahChaya]

My 90-year-old grandmother can see red just fine. Her night vision is slightly impaired, so she doesn't drive at night. Probably all dark colors, black, dark blue, maroon, are harder for her to see in dim light than white cars, but again, she doesn't drive at night.

Around here, I would say don't buy gray cars as they do disappear when it rains...

[Sara@home]

This explains why so many older people run traffic
lights and he said that a red car "blends" in so they can't see you. (now
living in Florida this is important)

What? It goes from being red to being highway camouflage? Not even just lose the color and become a car some shade of gray? Do all colorless cars -- white, silver, gray -- do this blending in?

The over 80's in my family continued to see the color red. They all stopped driving but they saw the color red until the day they died.

This is an eye doctor? And you pay him?

[franjava]

Originally Posted by Sara@home

What? It goes from being red to being highway camouflage? Not even just lose the color and become a car some shade of gray? Do all colorless cars -- white, silver, gray -- do this blending in?

That's what I was thinking... you may not be able to distinguish what color the car is, but you sure as heck CAN still see it. <---For the OP.

[ganzfeld]

About one in twenty men has red-green color discrimination difficulty. I don't know much about the driving laws but I believe very few states put any restrictions on these drivers. (I think two states have some restrictions.) The main concern is, of course, being able to discriminate stop and go traffic lights (especially at night), not different color cars! If being able to discriminate the color red were so dangerous, there'd almost certainly be more laws restricting this large minority.

Well, I have driven a silver Ford Focus for the last 3 years or so and I'm pretty sure that I'm not invisible. 'course, my car also has day time running lights in which my headlights are always on regardless of whether I turn them on or not....does that make a difference?

imho...this is one of the strangest things that I have ever heard before

[Em]

My car is blue, but if the behaviour of a couple of drivers I've encountered over the past few days is anything to go by, it has the Invisicar™ option installed. I just wish the off button was labeled more clearly.

[Gg83]

What are you all talking about? I can't believe people at the snopes message board have never heard of this well-known fact. It's also the reason that elderly people are incapable of distinguishing a horse from a zebra, a fact exploited by some unscrupulous zoos.

Gg "Of course, of course" 83

[Banrion]

I lovingly refer to the color of my car as wet pavement silver, because if it is rainy or foggy, I can't distinguish my car from the road in my mirrors, and I am pretty sure no one else can see me either even with my headlights and fog lights on. When it's gross out we take SO's car.

[Sara@home]

Originally Posted by Banrion

I lovingly refer to the color of my car as wet pavement silver, because if it is rainy or foggy, I can't distinguish my car from the road in my mirrors, and I am pretty sure no one else can see me either even with my headlights and fog lights on. When it's gross out we take SO's car.

This has as much to do with the color of the roads as with the color of the car. Concrete roads hide off white colors, blacktop roads hide black cars.

[Insensible Crier]

I used to have two very close friends who are red/green colorblind. They can drive perfectly fine. It's not that they can't see the color red/green and hence anything red or green is invisible. They just have trouble distinguishing them because they both look like shades of brown or gray. One of them says that for him, a stop sign is the same color as the grass beneath it. So if he sees your green car and thinks it's gray or sees your gray car and thinks it's green, what's the problem? He still sees your car.

[Daphodil]

Wow, I'm safe then. I just bought an asphalt-colored car with a thick yellow stripe down the center.

[ganzfeld]

Originally Posted by Daphodil

Wow, I'm safe then. I just bought an asphalt-colored car with a thick yellow stripe down the center.

It's the ones with the stripe on the left side you have to worry about. Down the center is okay as long as they aren't broken lines to indicate its okay to pass.

[Daphodil]

Originally Posted by ganzfeld

It's the ones with the stripe on the left side you have to worry about. Down the center is okay as long as they aren't broken lines to indicate its okay to pass.

I'll leave my indicator on.