Thread: Older drivers spur reform for road safety

Older drivers spur reform for road safety

Safety fixes urged as driving population grays

Lesley Wright - Dec. 6, 2009 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic .

The sign of the nation's future is on Grand Avenue.

It's a traffic sign encrusted with tiny polyvinyl beads that reflect light and brighten information for senior drivers. It sports large letters in a typeface that can be read from a distance and gives drivers more time to make decisions.

Seniors soon will dominate the nation's roads, lending urgency to measures to make roads safer. By the time babies born today are driving, one in four motorists will be 65 or older.

"There's been a constant concern that the population is growing older," said Reed Henry, an Arizona traffic-safety engineer who's working on the Grand Avenue project in the retirement community of Sun City. "Whatever helps seniors helps other drivers as well."

State engineers refer to federal guidelines that address Boomers' declining eyesight, delayed reflexes and slowed ability to quickly make critical decisions.

National, state and local transportation agencies are flooding lawmakers with studies about the growing need to prepare roads for what AARP calls "the Aging of America."

Waiting for major roadway remodels, the point at which traffic features generally are installed, may not be soon enough for the wave of seniors who are about to hit the highways.

"The oldest Boomers are now 63, and road changes don't happen frequently," said Nancy Thompson of AARP.

The powerful advocacy group for seniors recently finished a survey to see how many state transportation agencies incorporated senior needs into their planning and found "surprisingly few," Thompson said.

'Senior zones'

In Florida, with its large population of retirees, engineers are experimenting with "senior zones." They're based on the concept of school zones and offer a lower speed limit - about 35 mph - and wider stripes on the streets to keep motorists in their lanes and better alert them as they near pedestrian crossings.

Drivers will see brighter, easier-to-read signs on Grand Avenue when the Arizona Department of Transportation widens it next year. If the signage works, it could spread to other parts of the state.

Better signs are just part of the traffic-safety equation. Some experts say senior drivers need streets with bigger shoulders, wide and reflective pavement markings, larger signal lights, cleaner intersections and more pedestrian aids.

Doug Hecox of the Federal Highway Administration said he is in touch with traffic experts in all 50 states, and the experts at least are aware of safety concerns for senior drivers.

Communities of road experts spend time contemplating safety improvements such as sign brightness and fonts - the size and shape of lettering, Hecox said. The federal agency even has a research lab devoted to the subject. The researchers are mostly older drivers.

"There is a lot of personal investment," Hecox said.

Speeding up the laws

Still, lawmakers are scrambling. A federal regulation mandates that when signs are replaced, they must meet a new standard to overlay them with a reflective material. The Federal Highway Administration expects to see the brighter signs everywhere by 2018.

Rep. Jason Altmire, D-Pa., last summer introduced the Older Driver and Pedestrian Safety and Roadway Enhancement Act of 2009. It calls for the federal government to invest $500 million annually in road measures for safer senior driving, enhanced federal standards and the appointment of a senior-driving guru in the Secretary of Transportation's office.

"There are more vehicles on the road than there have ever been and a lot more older drivers," said James Scott Baron of the American Traffic Safety Services Association, which supports the measure. "Roadway safety is a major problem in America."

The institute estimates that 40,000 Americans die each year in crashes. Seniors have seen declining crash rates, but they're more likely to be injured or die in crashes than younger drivers.

Driving challenges

State engineers did not choose Grand Avenue for the pilot program by chance - it's a nightmare for senior drivers.

It has enormous poles cluttered with small signs and signal lights, intersections that don't "skew" at right angles and a mess of directional signals.

Mix in seniors' slower cognitive skills, delayed reaction times and problems with depth perception and peripheral vision, and Grand Avenue becomes one of the most challenging roads in the Valley.

Jane Lester, 81, a Surprise resident who learned to drive in 1946, hates Grand Avenue but has to drive it often.

Lester calls herself a cautious driver. She says she keeps plenty of distance from other cars and hits the brake if she sees traffic slow. She fears lane changes and drives under the speed limit, traveling 40 miles per hour on Grand if the sign says she can go 45.

"People behind me get mad," she said, although she's more concerned about getting her car home in one piece.

Lester said she drives only when she has to and will stop altogether when she moves in with her daughter.

Better signage

Hanging up the keys and retiring the license are things seniors dread, especially in the car-obsessed Southwest. Many have little choice but to continue driving.

But experts say knowledge of traffic safety has increased tremendously since American highways were built in the 1950s and 1960s. Great strides have been made in vehicle safety, Baron said, and road safety needs to be a priority, too.

Baron says brighter signs, pavement markings and other traffic devices that help older drivers are becoming less expensive, so states and cities should be better able to include them in road upgrades in the next few years. By the time the mass of Boomers becomes senior citizens, streets should look a lot sharper and brighter.

"The signage nowadays is better than it has ever been," Baron said. "The technology is night and day."

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/ ... s1206.html

From what I see in South Florida I can honestly say it is not the senoirs that are a big problem. If you keep track of the major accidents where people have died or had serious injuries the drivers involved are under 50. Yes there are some accidents where people hit the gas instead of the brakes and plow into something but they are usually in their 80's.

Originally Posted by swatchick

From what I see in South Florida I can honestly say it is not the senoirs that are a big problem. If you keep track of the major accidents where people have died or had serious injuries the drivers involved are under 50. Yes there are some accidents where people hit the gas instead of the brakes and plow into something but they are usually in their 80's.

The 2 biggest causes of accidents are:

1. People over 65 driving under 25

2. People under 25 driving over 65.

(Old Joke)