What Two Age Groups Have About the Same Fatality Rates Due to Automobile Accidents?
The purpose of the NHTSA Young Adult Highway Safety Plan was to create an organized and focused arroyo to the population most at take a chance on our nation'due south highways: the commuter under the age of 25. The Plan represented an integrated multi-disciplinary approach to a complicated traffic safety problem.
The young adult program was built upon a model initially developed as role of the Agency's anti-drunkard-driving program. This model addressed the young adult highway safety problem in the areas of enforcement, arbitrament, supervision, legislation, licensing, school-based programs, school-based extra-curricular programs, community based programs, and work-place based programs. These approaches were directed at the following priority areas: booze and other drugs, occupant protection, driver licensing, and motorcycles.
The output from this approach resulted in a presentation of (1) programs focused on a single issue; (2) comprehensive programs focused on ii or more issues; and (3) research and evolution activities. This research effort is intended to identify attitudes and behaviors feature of young adults to aid us in developing increasingly effective strategies for dealing with this population segment.
Many of the long-term research activities described in the Plan have been completed or accept provided sufficient new data in the expanse of problem identification. Some projects described have been completed and new ones have been initiated. The Agency is currently revising this Plan to reverberate accumulated progress and to arrange the findings of completed activities. The revision will be completed during Fiscal Year 1993.
NHTSA's Plan responded to the TRB written report's recommendations and provided details of other work deemed necessary to improve the safety of older persons. It called for conducting enquiry in problem identification, occupant protection, driver licensing, pedestrian rubber, consumer data and vehicle safety.
NHTSA has completed many of the activities described in the Programme and conducted boosted trouble-definition activities, including co-sponsoring an international conference on research needs of older drivers. The results of these activities produced new knowledge nigh older-driver problems that suggested improved ways of addressing both safe and mobility issues. This research has significantly refined the older person traffic safety bug and provided data to older person groups in both driving and pedestrian areas.
The Plan was designed to encourage close working relationships with other Federal agencies, the States, and boosted concerned groups. While implementing the Plan, NHTSA has established lines of coordination across both State and Federal government agencies and individual-sector groups. These connections have stimulated and guided research activities by other organizations well beyond the level that this Bureau would exist able to support.
The 1988 Plan for older persons is undergoing a major revision, and is scheduled to exist completed during Fiscal Year 1993.
| The foundation of all traffic safe enquiry is a thorough analysis of relevant information to place problem areas and define populations needing special attention. The ceremoniousness and effectiveness of countermeasure development rests on this foundation. This section summarizes the Agency'south findings regarding the level of crash interest of younger and older drivers, and characteristics of the crashes that differentiate between the two age groups. Additionally, this department presents information on differences in performance abilities that distinguish the 2 groups. | ||
| Involvement in Crashes | An evaluation of the relative magnitudes of the crash problems contributed by younger and older drivers indicates that younger-driver problems vastly exceed older-commuter problems. Figures 1 through 7 summarize crash data from NHTSA and Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) sources. Figures one and 2 testify, respectively, the number of drivers and the altitude that they travel by age group. The similar shape of these 2 curves shows that the mileage traveled by each age grouping is closely related to the number of drivers in the age group. In 1990 in that location were slightly more than than 26 million licensed drivers, ages 15 through 24, and nearly 22 million licensed drivers, 65 years of age or older. Although younger drivers just slightly outnumber older drivers (16 percent to thirteen percent of the population of licensed drivers, respectively), the younger group collection more than than twice as many miles every bit the older group. | |
| Figure 1. Number of Licensed Drivers by Age Group |  | |
| Figure 2. Full Miles of Travel past Age Group |  | |
| Figures 3 and four bear witness, respectively, the number of drivers in reported crashes and the number of fatalities resulting from those crashes. The shapes of these two curves are besides nearly parallel, showing that the human relationship between crashes and fatalities is roughly the aforementioned for all merely the older drivers. Younger drivers were involved in four times as many reported crashes every bit the older group. They also were involved in three times equally many fatal crashes equally older drivers. Compared with older drivers, more than than twice as many younger drivers died. | ||
| Effigy 3. Number of Drivers in Reported Crashes by Age Group |  | |
| Figure 4. Number of Driver Fatalities by Age Grouping |  | |
| Figure 5 shows that later the number of crashes is adjusted for the number of licensed drivers in the age group, younger drivers are considerably more than likely to be involved in a crash than are older drivers. In fact, the per-person crash involvement rate decreases as age increases until drivers reach 85 or more years of age. Even this age group has a per-driver crash rate lower than drivers younger than 50 years of historic period. | ||
| Figure five. Crash Interest Charge per unit per Thousand Licensed Drivers by Age Group |  | |
| While the per-person rates reflect a smaller proportion of older drivers involved in crashes than younger drivers, adjusting the number of crashes past the total mileage traveled by members of each historic period group reveals a dissimilar design. Figure 6 shows the number of crashes per 100-million miles traveled. This curve indicates that the highest per-mile crash rates occur amidst the youngest and the oldest age groups. This demonstrates that an "average mile" driven by a fellow member of 1 of these 2 groups is more unsafe than an "boilerplate mile" driven by a fellow member of an intermediate age grouping. Nevertheless, since drivers at either end of the age range drive far fewer miles than those in betwixt, researchers accept questioned the equality of those "average miles" across historic period groups. Unlike younger and older drivers, drivers in the intermediate age groups travel a sizeable proportion of their annual miles on expressways and other inter-city roadways. These types of roads typically offer fewer hazards than practice roads in urban areas. Nigh of the miles driven past younger and older drivers involve congested areas and heavy concentrations of intersections that offer relatively more opportunities for conflict with pedestrians and other vehicles. | ||
| Effigy half dozen. Crash Involvement Rate per 100 Million Miles VMT by Age Grouping |  | |
| Fatality rates reveal that older drivers are at increased risk of dying, whether the rate is based on the number of licensed drivers (shown in Effigy 7) or on the total vehicle miles traveled (shown in Figure 8). | ||
| Figure 7. Fatality Charge per unit per Thousand Licensed Drivers past Age Grouping |  | |
| Figure 8. Fatality Rate per 100 Million Vehicle Miles Traveled past Age Group |  | |
| If drivers of any historic period were equally probable to die from crash injuries, then the shape of Figure 7 should be the aforementioned every bit Figure five. This condition appears to concur for drivers below the age of sixty or so. Yet, drivers older than threescore years of age testify increasing fatality rates, indicating that older drivers suffer more serious injuries in crashes than do younger drivers. This increase in commuter fragility with age is shown more clearly past plotting the rate of fatalities per crash by age, as in Figure nine. On a per-mile basis, older drivers have a greater fatality rate than other-aged drivers. But by any other mensurate, younger drivers outnumber, out-travel, out-crash, and out-die older drivers. However, one time they are in a crash, older drivers are more than three times as likely to die than are younger drivers. | ||
| Figure 9. Driver Fragility by Age Group |  |
| Characteristics of Crashes | Past looking at the relative proportions of interest in different types of crashes, it is possible to gain some agreement of the differences and similarities betwixt historic period groups, independent of the absolute levels of involvement. Assay of police crash reports contained in NHTSA's five-State Crash Abstention Enquiry Information File (CARDFILE) reveals some striking differences and some surprising similarities between the crash patterns of younger and older drivers. | |
| Time of Solar day | Figure 10 shows the hour-by-hour pattern of crashes by drivers of different ages. The younger-commuter crash blueprint does non differ much from that of drivers between the ages of 25 and 64, showing the majority of crashes occurring between 7:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.thou., with a small peak during the hours of morn blitz hour and a large superlative during evening rush hour. Subsequently 8:00 p.m., the number of crashes declines slowly to a minimum around 4:00 a.m. (for 25 to 64 twelvemonth-one-time drivers) or v:00 a.m. (for 15-24 year-old drivers). Older drivers, on the other hand, take few crashes betwixt eight:00 p.yard. and 7:00 a.m. The crash patterns of older drivers do not show rush-hour peaks, but rather a deadening increase in number from 7:00 a.m. to about xi:00 a.thou., remaining flat until about 4:00 p.g., and slowly decreasing until effectually viii:00 p.yard. |
| Light Atmospheric condition | The human relationship between crashes and lighting parallel the patterns of crashes by time of mean solar day. Well over one-half of all crashes occur during daylight hours. However, the relative proportions of daylight and night crashes vary with age, every bit shown in Figure 11. The 15 to 24 age group has one in three (33 percentage) of their crashes later on dark. Drivers between 25 and 64 have one in four (25 percent) crashes later dark. Drivers between 65 and 74 accept i in 8 (12.5 percent) of their crashes afterward nighttime, and the oldest grouping (75 years of historic period or older) has one in twelve (8.iii percent) crashes after dark. These results follow the reported driving habits of older drivers: they tend to drive less and less later dark as they get older. Many do not drive afterwards nighttime at all. |
| Crash Severity | Remarkably, the distribution of crash severity is almost identical across age groups, equally shown in Figure 12. Well-nigh 60 percent of all crashes involve property damage only; 22 to 23 percent involve possible injury; 12 percent non-incapacitating injury; v percent incapacitating injury; and fewer than one per centum of crashes involve fatal injury. Amongst the fatal-injury crashes, the level of involvement increases with age, with 0.half-dozen percent for drivers xv to 64; 0.7 percent for drivers 65 to 74; and 0.9 percent for drivers 75 and older. | |
| Figure 12. Pct of Crashes past Severity Level and Age Group |  |
| Number of Vehicles Involved | The majority of crashes involve two vehicles, regardless of drivers' age, as shown in Figure xiii. Among younger drivers, two-vehicle crashes account for 68 percent of all crashes, compared with 71 per centum of drivers 25 to 64, and 80 pct of drivers 65 and older. The percent-point differences between historic period groups on 2-vehicle crashes are largely made upwardly in single-vehicle crashes. Proportions of single-vehicle crashes from the youngest to the oldest are 21 per centum, xvi percent, and ten percent, respectively. | |
| Figure 13. Pct of Crashes past Number of Involved Vehicles and Age Group |  |
| Relationship to Intersection | About crashes for all historic period groups occur at intersections, although the proportions are somewhat different for the different groups, as shown in Figure 14. Virtually l per centum of crashes of the youngest and middle groups occur at intersections, whereas about lx per centum of older drivers' crashes occur at intersections. Younger drivers show a greater tendency than other historic period groups to be involved in non-intersection crashes, with 15-24 historic period group showing 43 percent, the 25-64 group showing 41 percent, and the 65-74 group showing 31 percent. | |
| Figure 14. Percentage of Crashes by Human relationship to Intersection and Age Group |  |
| Pre-crash Maneuver | More half of the crashes of all age groups involve the vehicle going directly just prior to the crash, accounting for 59 percentage of the youngest group'south crashes, 57 per centum of the middle group's crashes, and 53 percent of the oldest group'southward crashes. These proportions are shown in Effigy 15. The most hit divergence between the groups is in the proportion of crashes involving left turning. While 11 percent of younger drivers' crashes involved left-turning, 17 percent of older drivers' crashes involved left-turning. Inside the older commuter group, the oldest drivers bear witness the greatest proportion of crashes in this category, involving 16 pct of 65-74 year-old drivers' crashes and 21 percent of the crashes of drivers 75 years old or more. | |
| Figure 15. Percent of Crashes past Vehicle Maneuver and Historic period Grouping |  |
| Driver Error | Excessive speed is the main error in 15 percent of younger-commuter crashes, only only in most 5 percent of older-commuter crashes, as shown in Figure 16. Right-of-way violations are the principal error in 18 percent of older-driver crashes, merely but in about nine per centum of younger-driver crashes. Older drivers also make more errors at signed or signalized intersections than do younger drivers: 14 pct and nine percent respectively. Driver inattention, which includes falling asleep at the wheel, was about equally likely among younger and older drivers, accounting for slightly more than than 5 percentage of crashes in each grouping. | |
| Figure xvi. Per centum of Crashes past Commuter Error and Historic period Group |  |
| Booze Involvement | Blood Alcohol Concentrations (BAC) at or above .10 pct are detected in nigh six.five per centum of crash-involved younger drivers. Drivers between 25 and 64 years of age besides show BACs at or higher up .10 percent in 6.v percent of their crashes. Older drivers, notwithstanding, show BACs at or above .x percentage in less than two percentage of their crashes. These relationships are shown in Effigy 17. Alcohol plays a much larger role in fatal crashes. I out of 10 fatal crashes in 1990 involved drivers or pedestrians with BACs between .01 and .09 pct, while four of 10 involved drivers or pedestrians with BACs at or above .10 pct. Twenty-seven percent of young drivers in fatal crashes had BACs at or above .10 percent, compared with 26 pct of drivers between 25 and 64, and six percent of drivers 65 years old or older. | |
| Effigy 17. Percent of Crashes by Driver Employ of Alcohol or Drugs and Historic period Group |  |
| Sources of Risk for Younger Drivers: Problem Behaviors | The primary problems of drivers between 15 and 25 years of age appear to be related to lack of experience, immature judgment, and chance taking. Younger drivers have limited life experience to rely upon in developing responses to the driving environment. Some researchers fence that younger persons, peculiarly in the teen years, have a sense of immortality and invulnerability to danger that carries over into their driving behaviors. Younger drivers tend to believe that crashes only happen to others. Some younger individuals also tend to display other characteristics that foster unsafe driving. Younger drivers perceive run a risk differently than older drivers. A NHTSA report found that younger drivers rated speeding every bit less dangerous than did their more than experienced counterparts. There also was evidence that immature drivers saw themselves as more expert than their peers, and that young drivers' increased familiarity with a driving location reduced their perception of danger in that state of affairs. This was not establish for more experienced drivers. The findings suggested that, relative to drivers over 25 years of historic period, young drivers associated lower risks with sure driving acts and underestimated their personal run a risk of being involved in a crash. . Personality factors, particularly among males, may besides contribute to the immature driver problem. The literature includes references to over-expression of impulsiveness, daredevil driving, anger in traffic situations, and driving to permit off steam after arguments. There also are weak just consistent correlations betwixt various "anti-social" personality traits (more common amidst the young than other age groups) and higher crash rates. | |
| Sources of Risk for Older Drivers: Declining Capabilities | The inquiry literature confirms conventional noesis about the effects of aging on cognitive, perceptual, and motor abilities. Historic period-related changes in vision make information technology more difficult for older adults to accommodate to darkness, recognize objects under depression lighting conditions, recover from glare, and search their environment. Nigh all behavior slows with age, with performance decrements existence more pronounced as task complexity and cognitive demands increase. Making decisions becomes more difficult, as does changing a course of action one time a commitment has been made. Retention deteriorates with age, although the decline in salubrious adults is non every bit great as previously believed. Brusk-term memory, in particular, is affected by crumbling. While few studies linked cerebral declines specifically to driving abilities, it is clear that these kinds of changes in abilities could pose problems for drivers who experience them. Experience and judgment are qualities that can contribute to compensating for slowed responses and sensory deficiencies. Evidence shows that virtually older drivers are enlightened of their irresolute abilities and suit accordingly: making shorter trips totaling far fewer miles, and driving substantially less at night, in heavy traffic, and in bad weather. These self-regulated changes in exposure to run a risk largely account for the differences in crash characteristics betwixt younger and older drivers. Driving problems increment with the seriousness of certain medical conditions. To the extent that older individuals are aware of their weather condition, they tend to limit their driving appropriately. But, if they are victims of conditions of which they cannot be enlightened, they announced not to limit their driving and are consequently exposed to greater crash risk. Cognitive disorders, such as Alzheimer's Disease and difficulties performing tasks that require processing of several sources of data are among the about serious of these latter conditions. Older drivers' prophylactic problems are exacerbated past increasing frailty. Drivers 75 years sometime or older are 3 times as likely to die in a crash than are 20 year sometime drivers. |
Source: https://one.nhtsa.gov/people/injury/olddrive/pub/chapter1.html
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