CRASH RISKS OF OLDER DRIVERS - A PANEL-DATA ANALYSIS

Considerable progress has been made on understanding older drivers' sa fely issues. None the less, findings from previous research have been rather inconclusive. Differences in data and research methodology have been suggested as factors that contribute to the discrepancies in pre vious findings. One of the methodological limitations is the lack of c onsidering temporal order between events (i.e. the time between onset of medical condition, symptom and crash). Without time-series data, a 'snap-shot' of medical conditions and driving patterns were often link ed to more than 1 year of crash data, hoping to accumulate enough data on crashes. The interpretation of the results from these studies is d ifficult in that one cannot explicitly attribute the increase in highw ay crash rates to medical conditions and/or physical limitations. This paper uses a panel data analysis to identify factors that place older drivers at greater crash risk. Our results show that factors that pla ce female drivers at greater crash risk are different from those influ encing male drivers. More risk factors were found to be significant in affecting older men's involvement in crashes than older women. When t he analysis controlled for the amount of driving, women who live alone or who experience back pain were found to have a higher crash risk. S imilarly, men who are employed, score low on word-recall tests, have a history of glaucoma, or use antidepressant drugs were found to have a higher crash risk. The most influential risk factors in men were the number of miles driven, and use of antidepressants. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.