Older Driver Safety Statistics

As an experienced Tennessee automobile accident lawyer I try to keep up with studies and trends in highway safety. On of the major players in highway safety research is the Insurance Institute For Highway Safety.  As the Baby-Boomer generation gets ready to explode onto the scene I thought you would find this study somewhat interesting.

Previous research has found that older driver fatal crash involvement rates per licensed driver declined substantially in the United States during 1997-2006 and declined much faster than the rate for middle-age drivers. The current study examined whether the larger-than-expected decline for older drivers extended to nonfatal crashes and whether the decline in fatal crash risk reflects lower likelihood of crashing or an improvement in survivability of the crashes that occur.

Results: Fatal crash involvement rates declined for older and middle-age drivers during 1997-2008 (1997-2005 for the 13 state subsample), but the decline for drivers 70 and older far exceeded the decline for drivers ages 35-54 (37 versus 23 percent, nationally; 22 versus 1 percent, 13 states). Nonfatal injury crash involvement rates showed similarly larger-than-expected declines for older drivers in the 13 state subsample, but the differences were smaller and not statistically significant (27 percent reduction for older drivers versus 16 percent for middle-age drivers). Property-damage-only crash involvement rates declined for older drivers (10 percent) but increased for middle-age drivers (1 percent). In 1997, older drivers were 3.5 times more likely than middle-age drivers to die in police-reported crashes (6.2 versus 1.8 deaths per 1,000 crashes), but this difference was reduced during the 9-year study period to 2.9 times, as the rate of older drivers dying in a crash declined (5.5 deaths per 1,000 crashes in 2005) and the death risk remained relatively stable for middle-age drivers.

If you or a loved on is injured or killed in a Tennessee motor vehicle accident caused by a negligent driver, contact the experienced Nashville auto accident lawyers at Phillip Miller & Associates for a free consultation.