Furthermore, with a little post processing work utilising colour separation, even if a distraction is a different brightness (e.g. a bright red car against pale green grass) you can selectively make the reds in your image paler grey until they match and blend in with the grey of the grass.
The black and white technique can be also used to save an image otherwise ruined by a brightly coloured distraction. When looking at a colour image your eye is immediately drawn to contrasting colours like red on green. In black and white photography, assuming the colours are the same brightness, they will often convert to uniform grey and no longer be a distraction in the shot. Furthermore, with a little post processing work utilising colour separation, even if a distraction is a different brightness (e.g. a bright red car against pale green grass) you can selectively make the reds in your image paler grey until they match and blend in with the grey of the grass.