Projecting Fatalities in Crashes Involving Older Drivers, 2000-2025

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Second, improvements in health status, as captured by our construct in this study, are projected to lead to an increase in elder driver fatalities. Had we been able to find a satisfactory relationship of health status in our crash risk models, this effect might have been attenuated, but as far as we were able to ascertain, the most reliable consequences of improved health status were to encourage greater mobility— larger driver percentages and more VMT. However, much medical research is being directed to specific ailments that retard such driving-related capabilities as vision fields and depression. Our findings underscore the importance of such research. 1 A third major influence on driver fatalities, of comparable magnitude to those of employment and health status, was seat belt use. Higher rates of seat belt use can be encouraged, and education among today’s younger age groups can build durable habits. A fourth finding of particular interest is the relative unimportance of income growth in the growth of elder driver fatalities. Since income growth is an important influence on both VMT growth and the growth of driver populations, it would not have been surprising had income growth been a major determinant of elderly fatalities. However, income growth is projected to make even greater contributions to the reduction in crash rates. This retarding effect of income on crash rates has a net lowering effect on total fatalities, although its effects on VMT and driver populations contribute to the growth of elder driver fatalities. Increases in elderly income do suggest, on the positive side, that older drivers in the future will be better equipped financially to purchase new vehicles with newer safety technology and correspondingly that education programs about the availability and effectiveness of such equipment targeted to them could be funds well spent. 1 For only one example of this type of targeted research, see Rubin et al., 1998, especially Section 13, “Preliminary Study of the Relationship between Vision and Crash Involvement.” GM Project G.6 10 - 11 October 2000
10.3 DIRECTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH 10.3.1 The Role of Infrastructure and Equipment Our approach to projection of elderly traffic fatalities permits us to attribute those changes over the next twenty-five years to specific causes, such as better health putting more elderly drivers on the roads. With the data available, however, we have been unable to identify the effects of specific technological and infrastructure changes over the past quarter century and are hence unable to incorporate projections of how they could be expected to affect elderly fatalities in the future. The best we have been able to do so far is to identify time trends in VMT and the percentage of drivers which are not otherwise explained by the variables in the model. To project effects of, say, ITS innovations or further vehicle safety improvements on elderly fatalities we could vary the time trends in the VMT and driver components of our projection (time trends were not successful in the fatality rate regressions), but the magnitude of the effects would be hypothetical. More direct study of the effects of equipment and infrastructure changes on the components of elderly fatalities could permit more precise projections of the direct and indirect consequences of improvements in those elements of the transportation system. Study of these improvements, coupled with investigations of negative effects such as deteriorations of certain infrastructure components and the increasing negative impact of driver distractions such as cellular phones, can offer more informative guidance for policy choices. See also Section 3.3.5 on current research on these technologies. 10.3.2 Asymptotic Projection of VMT The regression model underlying the projection of VMT does not contain any internal mechanism that would tend to limit the growth of VMT as its various determinants increase in value, a phenomenon we should expect because driving requires people to use their time. Although we have imposed an asymptote on the projections of VMT, we still consider our fatalities projections to be at the high end of what is reasonable, since we think that the base GM Project G.6 10 - 12 October 2000
Page 1:
ORNL-6963 Projecting Fatalities in
Page 4 and 5:
4. ANALYSIS OF DATA SETS ..........
Page 6 and 7:
GM Project G.6 vi October 2000
Page 8 and 9:
LIST OF TABLES Table ES-1 Elderly D
Page 10 and 11:
Table A.5.3 Projected Total Fatalit
Page 12 and 13:
NASS National Automotive Sampling S
Page 14 and 15:
Over the past century, the numbers
Page 16 and 17:
Figure ES-1. Projected Active Drive
Page 18 and 19:
Table ES-1. Elderly Driver Fatality
Page 20 and 21:
1. INTRODUCTION America is graying.
Page 22 and 23:
of existing data bases, including h
Page 24 and 25:
various data sources and their abil
Page 26 and 27:
Finally, data sets should contain,
Page 28 and 29:
• Examine data sources to determi
Page 30 and 31:
health care, resulting in longer li
Page 32 and 33:
Age group Table 3.2. Projected Rati
Page 34 and 35:
that individuals will not retire at
Page 36 and 37:
analysis. Distribution of the elder
Page 38 and 39:
More elderly people live in rural a
Page 40 and 41:
assessments of health status) does
Page 42 and 43:
3.2.2 Impacts of Increasing Frailty
Page 44 and 45:
current vision screening tests at d
Page 46 and 47:
Number of Licenses (thousands) 100
Page 48 and 49:
3.3.2 Changes in Driving Habits In
Page 50 and 51:
Transportation Survey (NPTS) data,
Page 52 and 53:
tourist services, and “smart” s
Page 54 and 55:
Specific highway enhancements to re
Page 56 and 57:
3.4.2 Other GM Project Results (Pro
Page 58 and 59:
• As age increased, being struck
Page 60 and 61:
men using mid-1990s data, this gend
Page 62 and 63:
major contributing factor as was dr
Page 64 and 65:
Total (percent) 100 80 60 40 20 0 A
Page 66 and 67:
cohort behavior and conditions for
Page 68 and 69:
4.2.3 Drivers and Driving Distance
Page 70 and 71:
The HRS and the AHEAD studies are c
Page 72 and 73:
these data and weights. Because of
Page 74 and 75:
U.S. Census Bureau (http://www.cens
Page 76 and 77:
5. OVERVIEW OF THE MODELING SYSTEM
Page 78 and 79:
or acquisition costs, of the goods
Page 80 and 81:
institutionalized settings, our pro
Page 82 and 83:
elationships between health and the
Page 84 and 85:
6. THE PROPORTION OF THE ELDERLY PO
Page 86 and 87:
Employment status represents a deri
Page 88 and 89:
statistical relationship exists bet
Page 90 and 91:
more likely to be drivers if there
Page 92 and 93:
Statistics (BLS) projections beyond
Page 94 and 95:
considerably greater proportional c
Page 96 and 97:
Table 6.3 (continued) Western Men W
Page 98 and 99:
Daily Person Trips/Person Figure 7.
Page 100 and 101:
Second, VMT as a consumption item i
Page 102 and 103:
century on which we are unable to o
Page 104 and 105:
The health status effects are posit
Page 106 and 107:
significant one in the final set of
Page 108 and 109:
empirically derived regression coef
Page 110 and 111:
GM Project G.6 7 - 14 October 2000
Page 112 and 113:
Table 7.3. Determinants of Projecte
Page 114 and 115:
8. FATAL CRASH RATES 8.1 MODELING F
Page 116 and 117: The other fatality risk concept we
Page 118 and 119: dropped. Since these measures have
Page 120 and 121: have a regular pattern over the age
Page 122 and 123: Table 8.2. Total Risk Crash Rate Re
Page 124 and 125: projection the asymptotic behavior
Page 126 and 127: GM Project G.6 8 - 13 October 2000
Page 128 and 129: GM Project G.6 8 - 15 October 2000
Page 130 and 131: percentages of people driving, and
Page 132 and 133: 9.1.1 Computations The projection o
Page 134 and 135: Figure 9.2, the combination of thes
Page 136 and 137: Table 9.1. Sensitivity of Total Dri
Page 138 and 139: material, dampening effect on drive
Page 140 and 141: Table 9.2. Sensitivity of 2025 Proj
Page 142 and 143: Age group Table 9.6. Sensitivity of
Page 144 and 145: 9.3.1 The Effect of Time on VMT Pro
Page 146 and 147: Figure 9.4. Projected VMT, Women (U
Page 148 and 149: Figure 9.6. Component Contributions
Page 150 and 151: Step 1: Introduction Step 2: Decisi
Page 152 and 153: Step 3a: Modifying Income at differ
Page 154 and 155: Clicking on one of the sheet tabs w
Page 156 and 157: 10. SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS, AND RECOM
Page 158 and 159: similarly relied on a regression mo
Page 160 and 161: trend of fatal crashes in the futur
Page 162 and 163: The base of exposure to crash risk
Page 164 and 165: population, and a slightly smaller
Page 168 and 169: projections of VMT may be high. Our
Page 170 and 171: of entry/exit, safety, security, et
Page 172 and 173: Blincoe, Lawrence. 1994. Estimating
Page 174 and 175: College of Commerce and Business Ad
Page 176 and 177: National Association of Development
Page 178 and 179: Suen, S. Ling, C. G. B. Mitchell, a
Page 180 and 181: GLOSSARY Baby boomers Persons born
Page 182 and 183: Table A.1.2. Projections of Vehicle
Page 184 and 185: Table A.1.4. Projections of Vehicle
Page 186 and 187: Table A.2.2. Projections of Drivers
Page 188 and 189: Table A.2.4. Projections of Drivers
Page 190 and 191: Table A.3.2. Elder Driver Fatality
Page 192 and 193: Table A.3.4. Elder Driver Fatality
Page 194 and 195: Table A.4.2. Projected Elderly Driv
Page 196 and 197: Table A.4.4. Projected Elderly Driv
Page 198 and 199: Table A.5.2. Projected Total Fatali
Page 206 and 207: Table B.1. Projections of Non-Insti
Page 208 and 209: Table B.3. Projections of Non-Insti
Page 210 and 211: B.2. INDEPENDENT VARIABLES PROJECTI
Page 212 and 213: Table B.5. Male DRI Income Projecti
Page 214 and 215: B.2.1.2. Projection Adjustments to
Page 216 and 217:
B.2.5 Seatbelt Use Our projections
Page 218 and 219:
C.3. DECREASING GROWTH RATES OF DRI
Page 220:
GM Project G.6 C - 4 October 2000 T
show all

Projecting Fatalities in Crashes Involving Older Drivers, 2000-2025

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?