Providing Solutions for Seniors, and their Families

Increasingly, Americans are becoming an older society. It is projected by 2025, people aged 65 and older will account for 25 percent of drivers, up from 15 percent in 2005.  And, unless we, as a society, do something to further reduce the traffic risks facing these individuals, the number of traffic crashes will increase proportionately.

Seniors and their families face significant challenges in maintaining personal mobility, including determining whether they can improve their driving and thus their safety with an educational or training intervention, whether they have reached the end of their driving career, and-when they are unable to drive-how they can continue to be mobile.  There is currently no uniformly accepted strategy for determining when and how to evaluate driving skills and abilities.  Families are loathe to take the keys from aging parents or grandparents for a variety of reasons, including the impact lack of mobility has on a senior's mental health.  But to improve safety for all members of society, there should be an acceptable system of screening, assessment, and interventions that respects the rights of seniors, the safety of other road users, and provides options when driving is no longer possible.

For more than two decades, the AAA Foundation has been at the forefront in recognizing aging and mobility as a serious safety and health issue.  In a leadership role, the Foundation has sponsored numerous studies on the impacts on driving ability of various physical and cognitive changes that occur with age, the causes of crashes involving older drivers, ways to safely extend the driving years where possible, and development of Supplemental Transportation Programs (STPs).  STPs provide transportation options for seniors to get where they need to go, when family members or other forms of public transportation may not be able to provide necessary transportation services to meet the mobility needs of non-driving seniors. For example, the Foundation-developed website, www.seniordrivers.org, is a well-respected and frequently visited source of information for senior drivers and their families.