NCJ Number
134485
Journal
Canadian Society of Forensic Science Journal Volume: 24 Issue: 3 Dated: (September 1991) Pages: 175-185
Date Published
1991
Length
11 pages
Annotation
A survey of vehicle paint systems was conducted in the Province of New Brunswick (PNB) and in the Province of Prince Edward Island (PEI) to demonstrate its evidential significance.
Abstract
Over 9,800 vehicles in PNB and 2,500 in PEI were classified on the basis of manufacturer and topcoat color. Discrimination from the previous study was expanded to include cars and trucks with both metallic and nonmetallic paint systems. The 27 colors used were black; white; of-white; gold; purple; pink; and varying shades of blue, brown, green, grey, red, yellow, and orange. The car truck ratio found in the PNB was 85.5/14.5 percent, and in the PEI, 87.2/12.8 percent. In PNB, the most frequent combination encountered was a General Motors (GM) dark blue metallic car (3.2 percent) with a medium brown metallic Ford truck (0.6 percent). In PEI, this combination included a GM medium brown metallic car (3.3 percent) and a medium blue or dark brown metallic GM truck (0.5 percent). The most common color was light grey metallic for both PNB (8.4 percent) and PEI (8.5 percent). Data from this study revealed that 2.65 percent of all vehicles recorded were red Chrysler cars. The metallic dark brown GM cars were present at frequency of 2.1 percent in PNB and the nonmetallic dark brown GM cars at a frequency of less than 0.05 percent. Non-metallic dark brown GM cars are present at a frequency of less than 0.05 percent, and the metallic and nonmetallic dark brown trucks are present at a frequency of 0.5 and less than 0.05 percent, respectively. This study shows that further forensic differentiation of vehicle color can be attained by including the metallic and nonmetallic nature of topcoat colors. 7 tables, 2 figures, and 3 references