Mercury Drivers Commit Fewer DUIs Than Motorists From Other Brands

The Mercury brand was part of Ford’s portfolio for a very long time – debuting in 1939 and ultimately going away in 2011 – and as such, there are still quite a few vehicles from that brand on the roads. As Ford Authority recently reported, a new study found that Mercury drivers are safer than those who own vehicles from other brands, too, experiencing 18.63 incidents per 1,000 drivers last year, which was the lowest of any automotive brand, in fact. As it turns out, Mercury drivers also committed fewer driving under the influence violations than drivers from most other brands, too.

According to a recent study from LendingTree, those behind the wheel of a Mercury model in the U.S. committed 1.39 DUIs per 1,000 drivers last year, which was the eighth lowest of the 30 brands subjected to this report – behind only Volvo (1.13), Hyundai (1.20), Kia (1.22), Cadillac (1.27), Lincoln (1.31), Infiniti (1.36), and Nissan (1.37). The worst offenders were Pontiac drivers, interestingly, who recorded 3.11 DUIs per 1,000 drivers – overtaking BMW this time around, which landed in second with a score of 2.57.

To come up with these rankings, Lending Tree analyzed tens of millions of insurance inquiries from its QuoteWizard tool that were conducted throughout the duration of 2024. It then calculated the number of driving incidents per 1,000 drivers in all 50 U.S. states, whittling down those numbers to categories including accidents, speeding, traffic citations, and DUIs. Ultimately, these results highlight specific brands that are likely going to be cheaper or more expensive to insure, based on their individual incident rates.

“People who drive these vehicle makes are likely to get slightly cheaper insurance rates than those with higher-incident vehicles,” said LendingTree auto insurance expert and licensed insurance agent Rob Bhatt. “That said, other factors come into play. Your car’s market value is another factor that impacts your insurance cost. If you total your car and have collision coverage, your insurance company has to pay you your car’s value, minus your deductible. Higher value cars tend to cost insurance companies more, and these are the types of costs that are often also reflected in your rate.”