Irish buyers are shying away from new safety technologies such as Autonomous Emergency Braking (AEB) due to high VRT costs. That is one of the conclusions drawn from the Ford Car Buying Trends 2014, which details the buying habits of consumers across Europe. Only 0.1 per cent of Irish buyers have so far opted for AEB, or Active City Stop in Ford parlance, compared to 74 per cent of buyers in Germany.
The safety system is designed to avoid rear end collisions by automatically applying the brakes when the driver fails to do so and has been cited by safety research agency Thatcham as being responsible for 18 per cent fewer whiplash type injury claims.
Eddie Murphy, boss of Ford Ireland, has long campaigned for safety systems to be exempt from VRT and recently had this to say to the Irish Times on the subject: "...exempting optional new cutting-edge safety technologies such as Active City Stop and lane departure warning, would certainly go a huge way to making these often life-saving technologies more popular."
"Once you add the full VRT rate to these optional items, they can become prohibitively expensive for some motorists."
The Irish are also steering clear of Lane Keep Aids with 0.2 per cent opting for it compared to a European average of four per cent, yet, bizarrely, 71 per cent of buyers here opt for the hands-free tailgate on the Kuga SUV, fourth only behind Netherlands (93 per cent), Portugal (88) and Romania (72).
The Netherlands also tops the list for the uptake of cruise control while there is a near 100 per cent uptake of heated seats in Scandinavian countries like Sweden, Finland and Norway. Norway also tops the list for air conditioning, the automatic kind at least, with the Irish topping the polls for the manual variety with 99 per cent of Irish buyers preferring to twist their own dials - or doing so to save money on a fully automatic system.
Anything else?
You may not have guessed it from Irish preferences, but petrol remains the dominant force in Europe, accounting for 58 per cent of sales. When it comes to diesel Ireland ranks fifth on the list behind France, Portugal, Italy and Turkey.
And while silver is the most popular new car colour for new Fords in Ireland, with one-in-four buyers opting for it, it is only the fourth most popular colour Europe-wide - a long way behind the top dog - white.