ABSTRACT
Nowadays we frequently call third age those 65 to 75-80 year olds who are still active and self sufficient and fourth age the over 80's who instead tend to spend less time outside the home. The issue with these population increases is that elderly prefer their own car to fulfill their mobility needs; as everybody else does. The accident rates are higher for older drivers and increase exponentially for drivers over the age of 75 years [8]; some authors argue that risk of accident for elderly would be overestimated influenced by reduced mileage travelled [10]: infact an analysis of accident data has revealed that the number of accidents caused by elderly drivers is, on average and per unit distance driven, actually lower than other age groups. It should be noted though that there are contrasting standpoints in the literature on whether elderly drivers are to be considered high risk. One side claims that they are not any worse than any other drivers for the following reasons:
in absolute terms older drivers do not represent a high risk group; by contrast as they recognize their own limitations and slower reactions, they tend to drive more cautiously and observe the rules of the road [9]; they also use less the car in difficult situations such as on highways or in bad weather and poor visibility [12];
in spite of their responsible behavior behind the wheel, there is an increase in the number of road accidents involving injuries to the elderly: this is to be attributed not, as mistakenly believed, to the higher accident rate, but to the greater physical fragility of over 65 year olds who are more likely to sustain injury in the event of an accident; for 80 years old drivers, the probability of dying if involved in an accident is five times higher than drivers between 30 and 59 years old [11];
they don’t drive under the influence of alcohol or drugs or falling asleep; similarly, very few older drivers are involved in single vehicle accidents [9];
