Elderly Drivers Research Paper

“A 79-year-old Florida woman backed over seven pedestrians Sunday morning while backing out of a handicapped space in a church parking lot killing three people” (Baldacci). More and more accidents have been described in the media where an elderly driver had been driving and people passed away as a result of a car accident. According to the IIHS (Insurance Institute for Highway Safety), elderly drivers have higher rates of fatal crashes, based on miles driven, than any other group except young drivers, the high death rate can be explained due to older people frail health- older people are less likely to survive an injury than younger people. Elderly driver’s accidents have started the discussion, how to prevent these accidents and the government …show more content…
One viewpoint claims that alcohol ignition interlock could prevent car crashes of elderly people. An alcohol ignition interlock is a breath-test device which prevents a vehicle from starting if the driver has been drinking. The vehicle will temporarily lock vehicle’s ignition if a person has a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) over a pre-set lower limit, usually 0.02 BAC. Center for disease control and prevention shows statistics that ignition interlocks reduce repeat offenses for driving while intoxicated by about 70% while they are installed. Additional information from BACtrack web shows that the highest percentage of drunk drivers involved in fatal crashes during 2010 were for drivers ages 21 to 24 (34%), followed by ages 25 to 34 (30%), and ages 35 to 44 (25%). At any BAC level, the risk of being involved in a crash is greater for young people than for older people. Center of disease control and prevention and BAC track statistics gives a valid point that driving under the influence is not a problem for elderly people, furthermore, alcohol interlocks should not be used as an effective approach to reduce the involvement of elderly people in car crashes. So as a solution, for elderly people who have diabetes, could be an altered ignition interlocks- blood glucose ignition interlocks, which requires a blood glucose level …show more content…
A person has been assigned to the driver improvement program for one of the following reasons: he was referred by a District Court Judge or an Administrative Law Judge; he accumulated 5-7 points on his driving record; he was convicted or granted probation before judgment for a moving violation while holding a provisional driver’s license (MVA). Wei Zhang in his study “A Study on the Effectiveness of Iowa's Driver Improvement Program by Gender and Age” analyzed 9,055 drivers who had been directed to attend DIP. Each driver was in a group with satisfactory or unsatisfactory completion. The evaluation of Iowa’s DIP showed that there is evidence of effectiveness in terms of reducing the number of convictions during in probation time subsequent to DIP. The probation time was one year since a person was admitted to go to DIP. Among the total 9,055 drivers in the sample, almost 7000 drivers completed the course satisfactorily, while around 2000 drivers were included in the “unsatisfactory” group. Among the drivers in the “satisfactory” group, 73% of drivers had no actions and 93% were not involved in a crash during the probation period. Older drivers (40 years of age or older) had fewer crashes in both the satisfactory and unsatisfactory groups after completing

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