Older drivers - Not the menace we’ve been told?

Jerry Seinfeld tells a joke about older drivers to the effect that in Florida it’s customary to back out of the driveway without looking first. Indeed, part of our culture believes in stereotypes about older drivers: that they’re a danger to the rest of us; that they don’t use turn signals (or do but then don’t turn them off); that they drive too slowly; and that they migrate to Florida like birds.

The view of older drivers emerging from a number of recent studies paints a more sympathetic picture, especially when viewed in the context of other drivers.

A 2007 RAND Corporation study came to these surprising conclusions:

• Statistics show older drivers are 16 percent likelier to cause a crash than drivers aged 25 to 64. But younger drivers are 188 percent likelier than those aged 25 to 64 to cause a crash.
• Older drivers, who represent 15 percent of the driving population, cause only 7 percent of all two-car crashes, while younger people, who comprise 13 percent of drivers, cause 43 percent of all two-car crashes.
• Drivers aged 70 and older are less likely to cause a crash than those aged 55 to 65. Of course, older drivers also drive far fewer miles per capita each year than younger people. But on the basis of crashes per licensed driver, they look pretty safe.

The RAND study found that older drivers are only slightly likelier to cause an accident but are much more likely to be killed in one. In fact, older drivers are almost seven times more likely to die in a crash than young drivers are. This is attributed to the increasing physical frailty that overtakes people as they age.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has done a number of studies along similar lines. The IIHS summarizes the fragility issue this way:

"In terms of fatalities, older drivers are a danger mostly to themselves and their passengers, who also typically are older and thus more vulnerable to injuries."

Several other factors characterize older drivers as a group that make them less of a highway threat than many believe. One of the most important factor is that older drivers self-regulate.

Many older drivers curtail their driving, take only familiar roads, avoid rush hour, and don’t drive after dark. Young drivers, on the other hand, drive many more miles per capita and travel at all times of day, but are much less susceptible to fatal injuries if they do have a crash. The net result is that the older-driver pool self-selects in favor of the safest drivers in the group.

When it comes to the question of whether older drivers should face more stringent licensing requirements, the jury is still out. Typical restrictions, varying by state, include shorter renewal cycles, visual acuity tests, and in-person written and road tests. The IIHS says it’s not at all clear whether these steps make a meaningful difference in preventing crashes.

The state of Oregon, meanwhile, has adopted an interesting alternative. Rather than making impaired driving an age-based issue, Oregon treats all drivers the same. Hospitals, doctors, other first responders and in fact anyone else can fill out a short form requesting the Department of Motor Vehicles to review somebody’s driving skills. The DMV takes particular care to weed out tattle-tale reports, which officials have said are pretty easy to spot. But if there is any sound evidence that an Oregon driver is not operating a vehicle safely, then the agency can call that person in for some testing, and then perhaps suspend or revoke that driver’s license.

In general, these studies show that while your grandparents may dawdle in the slow lane, they are likely safer drivers than the whipper-snappers that pass them.

—Gordon Hard

Comments

[Michael]

Wow. I would have expected CR to not get sucked in by a misleading series of figures like that.

What they say (without actually SAYING it) is that teens (so cleverly framed as "younger people") are worse drivers than the elderly. That seems to fall into the "d'ya think?" category.

The difference is that while the teens will learn to drive better as they approach that broad "middle" category, the older drivers' abilities will continue to deteriorate as they age. And if, as you say, that older-driver pool is "self selected" already, their higher-than-average accident rate is more alarming, not less.

None of us likes to face mortality, but sometimes we have to give it some consideration.

[Dave Johansen]

I don't get the logic here. Just because group B is worse than group A doesn't magically make group A "not bad".

[david]

I don't know about you guys, but I think the article is well written. BTW, I fall into the middle category.

[Nancy Thompson]

Birthdays don't cause accidents. AARP believes we are all responsible for maintaining safe driving practices, not only our own but also those of our family members, both young and old. A few signs can help you tell if it's time to have a family conversation about safe driving or even to hang up the keys:
1. Frequent “close calls” (i.e. near accidents).
2. Dents, scrapes, on the car or on fences, mailboxes, garage doors, curbs etc.
3. Trouble judging gaps in traffic at intersections and on highway entrance/exit ramps.
4. Other drivers honking at you.
5. Getting lost.
6. Difficulty seeing the sides of the road when looking straight ahead.
7. Slower response time; trouble moving foot from gas to brake pedal or confusing the two
pedals.
8. Getting distracted easily or having trouble concentrating.
9. Difficulty turning your head to check over shoulder while backing up or changing lanes.
10. Traffic tickets or “warnings” by traffic or law enforcement officers in the last year or two.

Some of these apply more to those with health conditions or whose medication may cause side effects, but most of these signs are important benchmarks for everyone. We all want safe roads, not only for ourselves, but also for our families.

[Ed]

I agree with Nancy on every point except for "drivers honking at you." I ride my bike to and from work (30 miles round trip) and get honked at about 2-3 times a week. Biking is a strange thing to most people in the US and though I am legally considered to be a vehicle with all the rights and responsibilities as cars, I often get honked at because misinformed motorists feel that i should be on the sidewalk. I know this because they yell it at me, often along with the middle finger. I try to be polite and if they stop to "chat" i explain that the safest place for me to ride is in the road, for me, cars, and pedestrians. If i slow them down, usually only a few SECONDS then thats the way its going to have to be because most roads have no speed minimum and I have the right to take up the entire lane if I feel there is not a safe place for the car(s) behind me to pass. I also drive very slowly despite being in the "young driver" category. I feel its safe and do not understand people in SO Cal who waste so much gas doing 80 mph on the freeways (I cruise at about 55-65). I sometimes get honked at in my car as well because I accelerate slowly and often to do not drive the "speed limit." I do not think these things make me a bad driver. They have actually lowered my stress levels. Old drivers should be free to drive as slowly as they need to in order to feel safe. However, if their cognitive abilities are deficient then driving slowly is not a good remedy. I just wanted to point out that the things that people often cite old drivers for as being dangerous, such as driving slow, are really not dangerous unless the people around them get impatient and try and do something stupid to get around them, pass them, make the light before it turns red, ect... I am a very safe driver and cyclist but some drivers who are in a hurry and trying to shave off a few extra seconds from their commute are the real danger. Everyone should learn to slow down and SHARE the road :)

[everett whitney]

"OLD vs 16 ..."

Between the original cost + upkeep, insurance,$4.50 fuel, etc., there needs to be a "re-thinking" of the preverbal American concept that all are .. entitled .. to a set of their own wheels the very day permitted by each state, 16 or whatever. Our high schools have more vehicles in the parking lots than our factories.

Obviously never going to happen - BUT - no one should be legally allowed to drive until they are 21 & thereby unable to cause a legal "horror story" due to lawsuits against their parents!

Every single teen driver Can cause parents to loose 100 % of what they have worked for in a single act of foolishness, D.U.I., excess speed, etc..

No amount of insurance will be sufficient to entirely protect the parents from such a possibility, either !

[Paul Strauss]

The legitimate public safety risk older drivers pose is yet another issue is yet another example of how politics has taken over every nook and cranny of American life. This isn't a public safety issue anymore, it's a battle of political special interests- teens who don't vote vs. older voters who vote in high numbers- good luck with that one, kids.

For the 97 Americans like me who actually think, and who are actually concerned with what's best for society- it's self-evident that older driver's dull senses and slower reflexes make them a grater threat to themselves and to public safety.

All relevant, thoughtful studies bear this out. It has to do with how you measure the threat-- raw numbers of accidents is one way; a better way is crashes PER VEHICLE MILE DRIVEN.

Teens drive thousands more miles without a crash than do seniors. Per vehicle mile driven, seniors are the greater threat hands down. In crashes involving cars and pedestrians, seniors have a virtual monopoly.

Rather than protecting the "rights" (driving is a PRIVILEGE, not a right) of older drivers, or introducing new regulations, testing and other inconveniences- we should simply do what they do for pilots. You can't drive when you're 10-- for good reason; it's time to look at a cut off age. Perhaps 60 is too young, but 80 is probably way too late. Somewhere between 65 and 70 is the right time to turn in the license.

Law makers and policy groups like AARP could actually start looking out for the health and safety interests of their constituents by making sure they're don't have a "right" to a 3,000 pound missile long past the time when they're physically capable of controling it.

Instead the energy of AARP could be put to better use by helping to address the real challenges of mobility for seniors. As the baby boom population in particular continues to age, the challenge will be to identify and refine the programs that best help them get around without threatening themselves, or others (In fact, one of the most cold and callous arguments made in the article above seems to suggest- they're old, they're frail, of course they die- so what? I'll tell you so what-- we have lots of laws-- seatbelts, etc. that protect people from themselves. Exempting seniors shows real contempt.)