Winter Visitors

8 Pages 1922 Words

As winter approaches, many elderly “snowbirds” have returned to Florida to enjoy the mild weather. Because of several “close encounters” with elderly drivers who were driving erratically, the writer wished to discover if those individuals have more accidents than do their younger counterparts. A casual review of the literature shows that older drivers become more crash-prone with age, even though they drive less miles. In addition, because older drivers are more fragile, their fatality rates are 17 times higher than those of 25- to 64-year olds. The problem at hand is the high accident and death rate associated with a large population of elderly drivers.
Last year, a woman sitting in the nail salon, enjoying a refreshing manicure looked up to see a bright red Cadillac coming through the shop window, stopping just short of a startled patron. Fortunately, no one was injured. The newspaper report of this incident stated that the 87 year old driver was in a hurry to get to her appointment, and drove into the parking lot at an excessive speed. When she thought she was putting her foot on the brake, she actually stepped on the accelerator and drove through the window. The newspaper also stated that this was not an uncommon cause of similar accidents—thinking that the accelerator pedal was the brake pedal.
America is undergoing a major demographic transformation. The “ graying of America” has resulted in an increase in the number of elderly drivers. Drivers over 70 years of age number 18 million today, up from 13 million in 1985. Why do these very experienced drives have such an excessive number of accidents? Although driving seems an easy activity, it actually requires the complex coordination of many different skills. Sometimes, when elderly drivers are the ones behind the wheel, this coordination is hard to accomplish. Older drivers experience physical changes that can affect driving ability such as: changes in v...