Older drivers, who are less likely to survive severe crashes than any other age group, also tend to drive outdated vehicles that lack crucial safety features, according to a new study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS).
Drivers over 75 are about four times as likely to die as middle-aged drivers when they’re involved in a side-impact crash and about three times as likely to die in a frontal crash, a previous IIHS study found.
Two new studies show that drivers 70 and over tend to drive older, smaller vehicles that are not equipped with important safety features.
The first study compared the vehicles driven by 1.5 million crash-involved Florida drivers ages 35-54, and 70 and older, over the years 2014-18. The second surveyed 900 drivers in those age groups from various states about factors that influenced their most recent vehicle purchase.
The study of Florida crashes found that drivers in their 70s and older were significantly more likely to be driving vehicles that were at least 16 years old than drivers ages 35-54. The older drivers were also substantially less likely to be driving vehicles less than three years old.
In addition, as driver age increased, vehicles were less likely to be equipped with electronic stability control (ESC) and head-protecting side airbags as standard features.
“All these vehicle characteristics have big impacts on crash survival rates, and older drivers are more often driving the least-safe vehicles by every parameter,” said Jessica Cicchino, IIHS vice president of research and a co-author of both studies.
“This only gets worse as their age increases, since many older adults stick with a single ‘retirement vehicle’ for the remainder of their driving years.”
Researchers determined that crash fatalities could be reduced by three percent for drivers 70 and older and five percent for drivers 80 and older if they drove vehicles with the same safety profile as their middle-aged counterparts.
