The UK’s strangest safety tips

by Tamsin McCahill on 29.01.08

So the kids are sitting calmly in their car seats, the dog’s safely restrained in the boot and you’re giving the road your full concentration. But could you be doing more to improve your safety behind the wheel? Well, if you believe the latest weird and wonderful news reports you could. From changing your job to the way you sit in the car, it seems there are lots of things you can do to improve your chances of being safe on the road.

According to a report on Sky News Living, if you’re a male chef who wants cheaper car insurance, it could be time to get some careers advice. It quoted a study by Diamond which said male chefs were more likely to claim on their car insurance than people in other professions. A spokesman for the company that carried out the report tried to shed some light on why this may be. “Being a chef is a high-pressure job. The adrenaline and tiredness after a long shift could have an effect on their driving ability.” For women, being a hairdresser was the most dangerous profession. The safest drivers were male policemen and female assistant teachers.

Wearing the wrong shoes may also impact on your road safety, as our story on driving shoes explains. It tells of the woman motorist who killed a pedestrian when she lost control of her car – possibly because she was wearing stiletto-heeled boots. But it’s not just women putting lives at risk by driving in the wrong kind of shoes – men in shoes with heavy soles or who are driving barefoot are also at risk. If you want to be completely in control of your car, wear pumps or deck shoes, says Safer Motoring.

Changing your shoes is easier than changing your job, but changing the colour of your car is probably somewhere in the middle. You may love cruising around in your sleek, black car, but you’re 12% more likely to have an accident than someone in a white vehicle, according to another report on the Sky News Living website. The report, sponsored by Australian motoring organisations, examined data on crashes between 1987 and 2004. It found that white is the safest car colour, followed by cream, yellow and beige. But it’s not just black cars that could be risky – people who drive grey, green, red and blue cars were also more likely to be involved in accidents.

Finally, did your mum ever tell you to sit up straight and not slouch? If she did, she could be increasing your likelihood of surviving an accident. According to the Australian driving organisation RACV, slouching forward in your seat could worsen your injuries in an accident. Its website states, “Drivers sitting too close to the steering wheel increase their chances of a more severe injury from an airbag. They need to be at least 30cm away from the wheel to give the airbag the chance to properly deploy and to give the seatbelt time to absorb any forward motion.”

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