Updated on
Summary Healthy seniors tend to make more dangerous driving errors.
According to a new study, healthy seniors even with safe driving records tend to make more potentially dangerous errors, such as forgetting to check a blind spot.The study suggests that driving performance declines with normal aging and more mistakes crop up, putting the elderly at risk of automobile crashes. Researchers examined the driving habits of 266 healthy drivers ranging in age from 70 to 88 who lived independently and drove at least once a week at least 17 percent of the drivers made serious mistakes that required the instructor to grab the steering wheel or apply the brake. The rate of critical mistakes among drivers aged 85 to 89 was also four times higher than among those 70 to 74 years old. The most common error was a failure to check the blind spot for other vehicles. On average, 500 elderly adults are injured every day in car accidents. Older drivers may need to restrict their driving to daylight hours, and make use of anti-glare equipment and onboard anti-collision devices.
