You may not believe the concept of "you are what you drive," but the police who hand out traffic tickets apparently do. A study released this month found that certain makes and models of cars were ticketed more than others and some of the findings just might surprise you.
It's no shock that the survey found that younger drivers in flashy sport utility vehicles (SUVs) or sports cars attracted their share of tickets. But would you be astonished to learn the car that attracted the most tickets was a $100,000 Mercedes SL convertible?
Basically, what the survey by Quality Planning, a unit of Verisk Analytics, a research firm serving the insurance industry, found was that expensive, high-performance luxury cars received more traffic violations than any other group. An analysis of the data, according to the Wall Street Journal, showed that these cars are usually driven by middle aged men who want to get what they paid for -- or at least can't resist the temptation to test their car's capabilities when they get on an open road.
One way to hedge your bets against getting a ticket, according to the study, is to buy a sensible American car. The list of most ticketed vehicles includes just two American made cars and both have been discontinued, the Hummer and the Pontiac Grand Prix.
Bob U'Ren, a Quality Planning senior vice president, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, said his company studied data on about two million cars to see which models racked up the most moving violations. That's how they came up with the winner, the Mercedes SL, whose owners collect four times as many tickets as the average driver.
Two other high-powered Mercedes also made the top 10. They are the 507-horsepower CLS 63 AMG sedan and the CLK 63 AMG coupe. Among others who had above average ticket rates, were four small cars, the Scion tC and xB, the Acura Integra and the Volkswagen GTI. Interestingly, the number two on the list of most ticketed cars was the Toyota Camry Solara convertible -- a car favored by middle-aged women, according to the data. Rounding out the most ticketed group are the Hummers, both the H3 and the H2 -- and the Pontiac Grand Prix.
For those of you who may want to drive the kind of vehicle police seem to ignore, the survey found less ticketed models are SUVs, minivans and sedans, with the least ticketed vehicle being the now discontinued Buick Rainier SUV. This was possibly because the average driver of the
Asked why certain combinations of drivers and cars seemed to attract the attention of police officers, Mr. U'Ren said the data suggests that high-performance cars or vehicles that cultivate a brash image attract drivers who enjoy driving fast.
However, the survey did uncover one car that doesn't quite fit that profile. It's the Scion xB -- a boxy urban mini-wagon with a 158 horsepower, four-cylinder engine. The average age of a Scion xB driver is 37 years old, but the vehicle got tickets at about 2.7 times the average.
According to the Wall Street Journal, which looked at separate research -- by two
Plus, they add that it helps to be a young woman. They were nearly 33% less likely to get a ticket than men. The economists also pointed out the key word here is "young" since once women reach about 75 years old, the advantage disappears.
