Projecting Fatalities in Crashes Involving Older Drivers, 2000-2025
Projecting Fatalities in Crashes Involving Older Drivers, 2000-2025
Projecting Fatalities in Crashes Involving Older Drivers, 2000-2025
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Over the past century, the numbers of highways, vehicles, and drivers have <strong>in</strong>creased<br />
dramatically. It is easy to allow the imag<strong>in</strong>ation to run rampant concern<strong>in</strong>g the upcom<strong>in</strong>g<br />
quarter century, to visualize super highways and technology-enhanced vehicles and a<br />
multitude of elderly, perhaps unsafe, drivers. Because of these concerns, Oak Ridge National<br />
Laboratory (ORNL) was tasked with develop<strong>in</strong>g a projection system to determ<strong>in</strong>e the impact<br />
of the elderly driver <strong>in</strong> the future.<br />
ORNL’s system of projection models provides national estimates and estimates for<br />
each of the four Census regions, <strong>in</strong> five-year <strong>in</strong>crements between the year <strong>2000</strong> and the year<br />
<strong>2025</strong>, for:<br />
follows:<br />
• The number of older drivers <strong>in</strong> the future who will still be driv<strong>in</strong>g, by age group<br />
and gender,<br />
• The average number of miles to be driven annually by an elderly driver, by age<br />
group and gender,<br />
• The total number of elderly driver fatalities result<strong>in</strong>g from crashes <strong>in</strong> which older<br />
drivers are <strong>in</strong>volved, and<br />
• The total number of all occupant and non-occupant fatalities (all ages) result<strong>in</strong>g<br />
from crashes <strong>in</strong> which older drivers are <strong>in</strong>volved.<br />
Our approach to develop<strong>in</strong>g a logical, transparent, and defensible model was as<br />
• Review the literature to ascerta<strong>in</strong> the current state of the research and to identify<br />
issues.<br />
• Exam<strong>in</strong>e data sources to determ<strong>in</strong>e compatibility between model<strong>in</strong>g issues and<br />
data.<br />
• Build a mathematical l<strong>in</strong>k between two national surveys so that <strong>in</strong>formation on<br />
health status could be <strong>in</strong>cluded <strong>in</strong> the model.<br />
• Develop three empirical models (percentage of drivers, miles driven, and crash<br />
rate) based on historical data.<br />
• Formulate assumptions on the projections of <strong>in</strong>dependent variables <strong>in</strong> the<br />
empirical models for the years <strong>2000</strong>-<strong>2025</strong>.<br />
GM Project G.6 ES - 2 October <strong>2000</strong>