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Youthful drivers tend to improve with on road experience, elderly drivers tend to worsen because of diminishing capacity. .........................
A true statement. There have been a number of discussions on this topic in the Retirement Forum, and like clockwork people talk about the texting teenagers as if that admittedly horrible and dangerous practice were somehow relevant to the problem of impaired seniors behind the wheel.
In other threads I have posted similar comments to this: With teenagers there is the realistic hope that they will improve - they may have a close call which scares them, or they may get a ticket, or some friend of theirs may be injured or even killed. If they decide that they will absolutely not text while driving, then the problem is solved. A simple decision fixes the problem.
But impaired seniors cannot simply decide that they will become safer drivers. Their impairment will normally never get better (there may be some exceptions), but will stay the same or (more likely) get worse over time.
Actually they are not good indicators. Seniors drive a lot less miles and for the amount of miles driven in the group they have more issues. But the low milages keeps their rates lower.
If seniors logged as many miles as teens they would be the same as far as crashes . Seniors are involved in more fatal crashes though.
I think what you say is logical, but I'd like to see a link to your source of information. Thanks!
Older people | 2013
2013
ALL FATALITY FACTS TOPICS
In 2012, motor vehicle crashes accounted for less than 1 percent of fatalities among people 70 and older. 1 People ages 70 and older are less likely to be licensed to drive compared with younger people, and drivers 70 and older also drive fewer miles. However, older drivers are keeping their licenses longer and driving more miles than in the past.
Per mile traveled, fatal crash rates increase noticeably starting at age 70-74 and are highest among drivers 85 and older. The increased fatal crash risk among older drivers is largely due to their increased susceptibility to injury, particularly chest injuries, and medical complications, rather than an increased tendency to get into crashes. 2
The following facts are based on analysis of data from the U.S. Department of Transportation's Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS).
Fatality rates for drivers begin to climb after age 65, according to a recent study by Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, From ages 75 to 84, the rate of about three deaths per 100 million miles driven is equal to the death rate of teenage drivers. For drivers 85 and older, the fatality rate skyrockets to nearly four times higher than that for teens.
The numbers are particularly daunting at a time when the U.S. Census Bureau projects there will be 9.6 million people 85 and older by 2030, up 73% from today. Road safety analysts predict that by 2030, when all baby boomers are at least 65, they will be responsible for 25% of all fatal crashes. In 2005, 11% of fatal crashes involved drivers that old.
The only measure scientifically proven to lower the rate of fatal crashes involving elderly drivers is forcing the seniors to appear at motor vehicle departments in person to renew their licenses, says the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), citing a 1995 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
U.S. Census Bureau data published in 2012 offers a small snapshot into the actual number of crashes for each age group. Drivers 19 and under accounted for 4.9% of all car accidents, while drivers 75 and older accounted for 6.5%
OK, I see your source. I do quibble with the interpretation though. It very well could be that driving seniors have more fatalities because of their less than robust health or constitution. It would be interesting to find out how the fatalities broke down, in so far as senior drivers, passengers, or drivers and/or passengers of other vehicles. If the fatalities are up across the board, that is there are more fatalities of others due to accidents caused by senior drivers, then we'd know for sure that seniors are more prone to accidents.
We did today, see a minivan ahead of us in the right lane, veer over very close to the line dividing the lanes, and then straighten. When we passed, we saw the driver was a younger female who was looking at her phone while driving. And later, as we drove down a narrow city street, a non elderly person drove into our lane from a cross street, causing DH to pull over. Either of these could have been accidents, and DH would not have been at fault. On the other hand, we have been rear ended by an older (than us) guy a couple of years ago. Luckily for us all, he was going slow. I really don't know why he hit us. So, I think all ages are guilty of careless driving.
I don't know what there's to be nervous about. Today's vehicles have a plethora of safety and convenience features that should make driving much safer for anyone, regardless of age. The problem is that most seniors know nothing about those features. When I asked one acquantence, who takes a lot of long trips, as to why he didn't get adaptive cruise control on his recent purchase, he said he would have had he known it existed. Adaptive cruise control has been around for two decades now! Seniors should be buying vehicles that have adaptive cruise control, lane departure warning, blind spot monitoring, rear cross traffic alert, collision warning, autonomous emergency braking with pedestrian detection, and surround view. These features are readily available on mid-sized sedans. The problem is that seniors are averse to getting the technology that would make them and others safer.
The older people get, the less likely the are to adapt to new ways of doing things, even when they didn't exhibit this reluctance when they were younger. Also, the first thing an elder forgets is the thing learned most recently and they become confused when faced with choices. So even if you carefully teach them something they are likely to forget it the next day. My mother had a computer on her job in the mid-1980s. I doubt anyone would think those dinosaurs were easier to use than today's computers. That computer didn't even have a mouse or Windows.
Yet by about age 75 (and she's nearly 90 now) she could barely Google information. She can read or send simple E-mails but forget about attachments, filing her E-mail, or simple editing tasks. If she wants something printed, she insists I do it for her. She says she's "afraid" she's going to break the printer. Could you actually do that without a hammer? I'm not even asking her to put paper in it, just hit the "print" button. My mother also insists on having a newspaper delivered every day; she refuses to access one on any of the three computers we have in the house, even though I have put direct links on the control panels.
My mother lives with me; two of my relatives and two of my friends are also caring for elderly mothers. So I see a lot of elderly people day to day. Every one of them has a reluctance to make decisions. Offer to take any one of them out to lunch, they'll jump at the chance. Ask them where they want to go, they cannot answer. Even if you give them some choices and tell them to pick one, they can't decide. Forget about expecting them to get dressed and ready in any normal amount of time, even when they are physically quite able. Choosing an outfit requires decisions.
Well, so does driving, even though many elders refuse to acknowledge that. Behind the wheel they easily become overloaded and the result is scrambled thinking and nervousness. Having a GPS or other helpful technology in the car would just be another distraction they could not deal with, let alone learn to use. Not one of the people I see this behavior in has been diagnosed with any form of dementia, but they all exhibit fearfulness and vulnerability when faced with choices or multi-tasking. Needless to say, they shouldn't be driving. Yet I know many people older than my mother who refuse to relinquish their keys. Mom's best friend is 92 and drives every day in Pennsylvania, come rain or snow. It's terrifying to think about.
This is purely anecdotal, but many older drivers do not report fender benders to their insurance companies. The reason given are that they are afraid their rates will go up and they'd rather just pay the repair expense and be done with it.
Younger drivers may not be in a financial position to do the same.
Many of our older neighbors have run into the edge of their garages, backed into their mailboxes, etc. and never involved their insurance companies. One family friend knocked down the corner of her daughter's carport.
Also, many older drivers drive older cars. If they drop the collision, there is no reason to report such mishaps. Whereas drivers of newer cars often have collision coverage.
That reminds me that when my MIL gave us her car after giving up the keys we noticed big scrapes on both the front AND rear bumpers. We asked how they happened and she just said "I don't know". She wasn't even AWARE she had hit something somewhere.
Fatality rates for drivers begin to climb after age 65, according to a recent study by Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, From ages 75 to 84, the rate of about three deaths per 100 million miles driven is equal to the death rate of teenage drivers. For drivers 85 and older, the fatality rate skyrockets to nearly four times higher than that for teens.
Sounds good. I've got five more years to go before I turn into a teenager again!
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