For those who’d like a little mental exercise, and are interested in road safety, here’s an analysis of road safety that misses an obvious source of spurious correlation. I got it from the SMH, but to make life easy I’ve lifted the whole story. First to spot the obvious error gets a free mention in the update to this post (not much of a prize, but it’s an easy contest). My judgement is final, but, this being the blogosphere, lengthy flame wars will be entered into.

The popular stereotype of the dumb blonde could be shattered if accident statistics are any guide.

Insurance company Suncorp yesterday released a survey that shows blondes could be the nation’s best drivers.

The nationwide study of car accident trends found that people who described themselves as blonde had fewer crashes than others.

They were also less likely to be the victims of road rage and second least likely to feel rage against other drivers.

But the study found fiery redheads lived up to their reputation with red-haired women admitting they were the most likely of all respondents to feel fury on the road.

“As a group, blonde men and women came out on top in the driving stakes,” Suncorp personal insurance spokesman Warren Duke said.

“But the best drivers of all were black-haired women with only 47 per cent stating they had ever been involved in an accident.

“Red and black-haired men tied for the title of the most car accident prone.”

Mr Duke said Suncorp had decided to take a lighthearted look at a range of car crash data and found only 56 per cent of blonde respondents had ever been in a crash.

Update The winner is Kinich Gatsky, who observes that women are likely to be over-represented in the blonde group, and also to have lower accident rates. Runner-up is Derrida Derider.