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What to drive if you want to get a ticket

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Filed under: Insurance, Transportation

If you were challenged to pick one widely-sold car most likely to attract traffic tickets, what would it be? A Corvette? Mustang? Honda S2000? Mazda Miata? According to Quality Planning Corporation, which helps the auto insurance industry evaluate risk, you'd be wrong, wrong, wrong.

Is Your Car Here?

    According to Quality Planning Corporation, which helps the auto insurance industry evaluate risk, certain cars are more likely to get pulled over for speeding than others. The Hummer H2/H3 is 463% more likely to get a ticket than other vehicles.

    David McNew, Getty Images

    The Scion tC, favored by young drivers, clocks in at 460% more likely than other cars to get caught for speeding.

    Toyota / MCT

    Scion XB has a 403% chance of getting pulled over and ticketed.

    Toyota / AP

    The Buick Lucerne is one of the least likely cars to get pulled over for speeding.

    Buick

    The GMC Sierra C1500, on average, gets pulled over far less than other vehicles on the road.

    GMC

The top ten ticket magnets, according to its recently released study, are
  1. Hummer H2/H3, with 463% more tickets than average
  2. Scion tC, 460%
  3. Scion XB, 403%
  4. Mercedes Benz CLK63 AMG, 397%
  5. Toyota Solara, 306%
  6. Mercedes Benz CLS63 AMG, 276%
  7. Scion XA, 275%
  8. Subaru Outback, 266%
  9. Audi A4, 264%
  10. Toyota Matrix, 264%
Not many hot cars in the mix, are there? But I note that several, including the Scions, are cars favored by young drivers. How else can we account for the inclusion of the refrigerator with wheels, the Scion xB, in this list? What is important here is that these figures could drive up the cost of insuring owners, in that tickets are an indicator of hazardous driving.On the other hand, if you want to avoid tickets, you might want to look at the bottom ten:
  1. Jaguar XJ, 11%
  2. Chevrolet Suburban, 16%
  3. Chevrolet Tahoe, 21%
  4. Chevrolet C/K 3500/2500, 28%
  5. Buick Park Avenue, 32%
  6. Mazda 6, 34%
  7. Buick Rainier, 37%
  8. Oldsmobile Silhouette, 37%
  9. Buick Lucerne, 40%
  10. GMC Sierra C1500, 40%
Two attributes jump out at me-- all but one of these is made by an American company, and attract mature drivers. Perhaps that should be the thrust of GM's marketing; drive American and avoid a ticket. Or maybe the best bailout for Detroit would be for every police department in the country to agree to give warnings, rather than tickets, to those driving Detroit iron.

Read- 40 tips to avoid traffic tickets
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