Risky driving behaviors – including an increase in alcohol and marijuana use – have U.S. traffic deaths on the rise in recent years, and a reduction in traffic during the pandemic didn’t seem to help, either, though Ford continues to try and combat this growing problem with its long-running Driving Skills for Life program. As it turns out, those that drive under the influence of alcohol also happen to drive certain types of cars more than others, and that includes the Ford Contour, according to new data from Insurify.
The Ford Contour was essentially a rebadged version of the first-generation Ford Mondeo that was sold in North America for the 1995-2000 model years, along with Mercury’s version of the car, dubbed the Mystique. For whatever reason, the Contour also ranked tenth on Insurify’s car models with the most DUIs list, with 2.92 percent of owners having a prior DUI violation. The Contour ranked behind the Dodge Ram 2500 (4.95 percent), Subaru WRX (4.1 percent), Chevrolet S-10 (3.47 percent), Audi A4 (3.28 percent), GMC Sonoma (3.09 percent), Toyota Tacoma (3.08 percent), Chevrolet Silverado (3.02 percent), GMC Sierra (3.01 percent), and Dodge Dakota (2.92 percent), at least.
Infurify calculated this data by pulling 1.6 million car insurance applications from its database and looking for drivers that had been cited for driving under the influence. From there, the number of drivers with citations was compared against the number of each model listed in the system. On average, 1.78 percent of car owners per model had a prior DUI violation.
Interestingly, 7 out of 10 vehicles on this list are pickup trucks, but that isn’t the only notable takeaway. Additionally, 7 out of 10 models are domestic makes, and only one – the Contour – has fuel economy ratings that were above the national average of the time, strangely enough.
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Comments
Many of those vehicles are out of production. My guess is that once the drivers got their privileges back, fines and lawyers’ fees took so much of their money that they bought whatever was cheapest. I’d love to know the model years, though we know the Detour hasn’t been made since Y2K.
True how many Contours and Mytiques are still on the road? I haven’t seen either of these models in over 10 years but I still see a few S-10s, old Corollas, old Civics, and a number of old Buicks and Pontiacs.
I really needed a vehicle and a co-worker offered to sell me his wife’s Contour because she thought it was cursed, she had two accidents with it in a short period of time while late in her pregnancy and wanted nothing to do with it. I hated the idea of owning a Ford product, but it was only a few years old, low miles, and within my price range. I also knew he was a perfectionist that took excellent care of his vehicles. It was small but comfortable. Bought it, spent a little money to have the body damage repaired, then, drove it for the first time. This car was the biggest “slug” I’ve ever driven, you could put the gas pedal to the floor and it did not want to move! I grew up very poor, my family bought REAL junk cars and tried to keep them running as long as they could, before they got handed down to me. I’ve owned or driven every kind of vehicle there is. I have never been so disappointed with a cars performance, ever. And finally, about two weeks after I purchased it (or less) I was t-boned in my new Contour and it was a total loss. So, I guess my co-workers wife was right, it was cursed. EVERY time I think of Ford, I’m reminded of that horrible vehicle and what a mistake it was to even consider buying a Ford product. Never again, no matter how good a deal it might seem.
I’d like to add one more thing…
My family and I used to love our Mazda’s, had only great things to say about them. You could drive them and drive them, never put any money into them, they never rusted, they never left you stranded on the side of the road. Then, Ford and Mazda started making cars together. I’m not sure I could ever trust Mazda again after that.