Elderly Drivers' Hazard Perception and Driving Performance

A comparison of the hazard perception ability of matched groups of healthy drivers aged 35 to 55, 65 to 74, and 75 to 84 years

“…However, there was no attempt to match individuals between age groups, and age-related declines could have been a function of a greater incidence of pathology in the older drivers. Renge et al ( 2005) reported that older drivers detected fewer hazards in a freeze-framed image of a traffi c scene than middle-aged drivers, though this type of measure is potentially assessing a different aspect of driving ability than latencybased video tasks.…”

Risk Presentation Aimed at Improving Older Drivers' Understanding of Their Problems via Simulator-Based Education Programs

“…Those images were taken from the perspective of the person primarily responsible for the accidents. Because old drivers are likely to appraise their driving as highly safe [13], [18], being an "offender" appears to conflict with their internal convictions about their driving ability. Compared to the objective bird's-eye view, the trailing view conveys a truer feeling of being an offender, which might have led participants to try to reduce their conflicting feelings [19].…”

“…Such adjustments are often needed when merging at highway junctions and when changing lanes. The practice requires the driver to maintain constant attention and give due consideration to the intentions and behavior of other vehicles [13]. However, this is reportedly hard for old drivers [14].…”

Hazard perception in older drivers

“…Some data indicate that older drivers fixate hazards at least as well as other drivers (Pradhan et al, 2005;Underwood et al, 2005), yet they have been shown to search the roadway environment less thoroughly (Lavalliere et al, 2007;Renge et al, 2005). Age deficits in hazard identification have been reported by Renge et al (2005), Borowsky et al (2010), and Horswill et al ( , 2009Study 2). In contrast, Ota (1997), Renge et al (2008) and Underwood et al (2005) found no difference among younger and older groups of drivers on hazard perception tests.…”

“…As well, the hazards that are challenging for younger drivers who lack an appropriate mental model (e.g., Scialfa et al, 2011a;Underwood et al, 2002) may differ from those that pose problems for older people, who have rich schemas for hazards developed over years of driving (Borowsky et al, 2009). In comparison to some earlier work using very brief tests (Pradhan et al, 2005;Renge et al, 2005Renge et al, , 2008Ota, 1997), we asked drivers to respond to almost 100 diverse traffic scenes. Additionally, by collecting data on measures of sensory function and simple spatial reaction time, we were able to determine if any age-related deficits were mediated by well-known changes in abilities that underlay safe driving (Stutts et al, 2009).…”