Elderly drivers who have experienced a fall have a 40 percent higher risk of causing or being involved in an automobile accident, as opposed to elderly drivers who have not fallen.
For senior citizens, a fall can be very dangerous, resulting in serious injuries that hinder their ability to steer or react promptly to unexpected situations. But even if no injuries are sustained in the fall, the experience alone can cause apprehension and lead to an avoidance of physical activities that are beneficial for maintaining the skill and awareness necessary to drive safely.
Falls should be viewed as an early indication that the faculties necessary to stay behind the wheel may be on the decline.
This information comes from a study performed by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety’s Longitudinal Research on Aging Drivers (“LongROAD” for short), which intends to build and maintain a thorough database that will track the driving trends of elderly drivers.
Such tracking methods will give researchers the opportunity to target some of the potential risks that older drivers face and determine what preventative actions could be taken to safely prolong their time behind the wheel.
Drivers over 60 years of age are involved in over 400,000 crashes each year, making it apparent that studies on older drivers need to be conducted in order to increase roadway safety.
While there is hope that studies such as these may soon provide a clearer picture of what can be done to prevent crashes involving elderly drivers, it is an unfortunate truth that the current number of relevant accidents remains high.
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