{"id":39903,"date":"2023-11-11T08:27:58","date_gmt":"2023-11-11T08:27:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/?p=39903"},"modified":"2026-07-09T17:28:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T17:28:13","slug":"bmw-subaru-and-porsche-drivers-more-likely-to-cause-a-crash-study","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/2023\/11\/11\/bmw-subaru-and-porsche-drivers-more-likely-to-cause-a-crash-study\/","title":{"rendered":"BMW, Subaru and Porsche drivers \u2018more likely to cause a crash\u2019- Study"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

What came first, the\u00a0boy racer\u00a0or the sports car? Academics have called for further research into the marketing of cars after analysis of UK accident data suggested that drivers of certain brands are more likely than others to cause a crash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A study of more than 400,000 UK road accidents found that when \u201crisky or aggressive manoeuvres\u201d played a part in collisions, there was a significant statistical difference in driver culpability across different brands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dodgy driving \u2013 covering such reported infringements as speeding, jumping a red light, overtaking on double white lines or ignoring the humble pedestrian crossing \u2013 was more likely to be a factor when a Subaru,\u00a0Porsche\u00a0and BMW was involved than a Skoda or Hyundai.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having factored in variables such as drivers\u2019 ages and road types, the researchers hypothesised that\u00a0branding\u00a0could be to blame,\u00a0in a paper\u00a0published in the Journal of Social Marketing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lead author Alan Tapp, professor of social marketing at the University of the West of England, said: \u201cAll things being equal, you\u2019d expect the same proportion of aggressive manoeuvres across all types.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, there was a higher prevalence in the Department for Transport collision data among makes he characterised broadly as those with \u201cadvertising and marketing that seems to celebrate performance driving, look at me, king-of-the-road stuff\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"a
Critics point out that the study has some obvious \u2018scientific limitations\u2019 and \u2018its findings must be treated with caution\u2019. A fair point \u2013 the car pictured here is a Skoda. Photograph: Nikos Katikis\/DPPI\/Shutterstock<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Drivers of Subaru cars \u2013 once enthusiastically defined in his\u00a0Top Gear\u00a0days by Jeremy Clarkson as \u201ca fire-breathing incarnation from the pixellated world of the PlayStation\u201d whose slamming door \u201cmakes exactly the same sound as a recently shot pheasant hitting the ground\u201d \u2013 were involved in proportionately the most \u201cinjudicious action\u201d, the paper found.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s chicken and egg \u2013 do aggressive drivers choose certain cars, or do brands make things worse?\u201d said Tapp. \u201cWe know that some car makes spend hundreds of millions of dollars worldwide every year promoting their cars with imagery that, in some cases, subtly implies a connection between their make of car and high performance driving. We also know that the design of some makes seems to appeal to drivers who may want to push the boundaries of performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOf course, these manufacturers abide by the laws and regulations that govern them and we are not suggesting otherwise. But now that this data has come to light, should we be pressing the manufacturers and regulators to take another look at the way in which modern marketing techniques might have an adverse effect on road safety?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Co-author Dan Campsall, of road safety consultancy Agilysis, said: \u201cWhile manufacturers are introducing all kinds of innovative technology to improve safety, the operator is still a human being, and we are sending them mixed messages about what is expected of them when they are driving.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mark Borkowski, a branding guru, said car manufacturers had long been \u201cbewitching a consumer to buy into a lifestyle brand \u2026 you have the Top Gear or Grand Tour idiom, or movies like Fast and Furious or James Bond\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNone of those experiences and imagery seem particularly real, but people maybe \u2013 particularly guys \u2013 step into those cars and think they\u2019ve become those brands, even when you don\u2019t have those Swiss mountain passes or the LA Freeway. And nothing looks more silly than being in a super-sleek car tootling slowly around on the streets of Guildford and Gosport.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What came first, the\u00a0boy racer\u00a0or the sports car? Academics have called for further research into the marketing of cars after analysis of UK accident data suggested that drivers of certain brands are more likely than others to cause a crash. A study of more than 400,000 UK road accidents found that when \u201crisky or aggressive […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":39904,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[5144,9306,12756,10836,5673,13175,5520,6373,9787,8193,7396,9309,7583,5927,1258,6621,3530,6159,401,7022,6689,2554,8998,10560,12329,3874,9683,9029,3912,10313,4843,11259,10837,9713,6675,12605,214,6571,36,594,6974],"class_list":["post-39903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-accident","tag-appeal","tag-automobile","tag-bmw","tag-bond","tag-car","tag-cars","tag-chicken","tag-collision","tag-crash","tag-data","tag-dollars","tag-driver","tag-drivers","tag-england","tag-europe","tag-fast-and-furious","tag-fire","tag-guru","tag-human-being","tag-hyundai","tag-james-bond","tag-jeremy-clarkson","tag-la","tag-laws","tag-lead","tag-millions","tag-movies","tag-porsha-williams","tag-professor","tag-road-safety","tag-shot","tag-subaru","tag-swiss","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-university","tag-white","tag-world","tag-who","tag-worldwide"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39903"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39903\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39905,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39903\/revisions\/39905"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}