Gearing Up for an Aging Population

According to a June 2002 article in BMJ Publishing Group's Injury Prevention journal, Stephen Lyman and coauthors project that aging baby boomers are expected to have a profound effect on the safety of the Nation's roadways, comprising up to one-fourth of all traffic fatalities by the year 2030. There are a number of reasons for focusing on older drivers, not all of which are readily apparent from a superficial examination of crash statistics.

Based purely on crash rates per licensed driver, older adults are some of the safest drivers on the roadway, and their crash rates have not shown dramatic increases over the past decade. The picture changes, however, when the rates are calculated based on miles driven rather than on licensed drivers. And when the attention also shifts to fatalities rather than crashes or injuries, there is even greater cause for concern. Compared to an overall national average of 1.44 fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles traveled (MVMT), drivers over the age of 75 have a fatality rate of 3.7 deaths per 100 MVMT. And those over the age of 85 have a fatality rate of 8.0 deaths per 100 MVMT, according to Tony Kane, director of engineering and technical services at the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO).

Given the national goal—adopted by AASHTO, the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT), and others—of lowering the national highway fatality rate from 1.44 to 1.0 per 100 MVMT by the year 2008, Kane says, "These are disturbing numbers, especially when one considers the large projected increase in the number of older drivers on our roadways." He notes that the Nation's population not only is aging but also comprises greater numbers of older adults continuing to drive into their 80s and beyond. These seniors are making more trips and driving more miles.

In the Injury Prevention article cited earlier, Lyman and his coauthors echo Kane's concerns. The authors conclude, "Because older vehicle occupants will comprise a large proportion of future deaths in motor vehicle crashes, public health efforts to reduce their morbidity and mortality should be pursued." Factoring the baby boomer trend into the equation will in all likelihood multiply the challenges to be addressed in reducing the fatality rate.

To help State departments of transportation (DOTs) meet the reduction in the national highway fatality rate, the Transportation Research Board's (TRB) National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) published a series of guides for improving highway safety called NCHRP Report 500: Guidance for Implementation of the AASHTO Strategic Highway Safety Plan (NCHRP Report 500).One volume of this series is NCHRP Report 500: Volume 9: A Guide for Reducing Collisions Involving Older Drivers (guide). The volume 9 guides recommends planning strategies for improving the roadway and driving environment to better accommodate older drivers, identifying high-risk older drivers and intervening to lower their crash risk, improving the driving competency of older adults in general, and reducing the risk of injury and death to older occupants involved in crashes.

No single agency or organization could accomplish the strategies in these areas on its own. Rather, a coordinated effort is needed that involves partnerships across agencies and organizations in both the public and private sectors.