Road Tests for Old People May Not Improve Safety

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jan 12, 2:44PM EST · Published Feb 17, 6:15AM EST

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Road Tests for Old People May Not Improve Safety — © Thinkstock

[cnxvideo id=”506324″ placement=”ros”]In theory, the reflexes and eyesight of elderly Americans affect their ability to drive safely. The same should hold true for the effects of cognitive decline. New data show that tests given to older people to ascertain their ability to drive safety may be worthless.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) and the Highway Loss Data Institute (HLDI) collected data from two states that give driving tests to old people. The results were decidedly mixed. In Illinois, road tests of people 75 and over seem to have cut accidents. In New Hampshire, the tests were ineffective.

Why put the tests in place at all? According to the HLDI:

Per mile traveled, older drivers crash more often than middle-age adults, though not as often as young drivers.

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Tests in Illinois are meant to push older drivers off the road via changes in the driver license test cycle:

Illinois is the only state that currently has a road-test requirement for older drivers. The requirement applies to all drivers age 75 and older. All Illinois drivers 80 and younger must renew their licenses every four years. Drivers 81-86 must renew every two years, while those 87 and older are required to renew annually.

The state’s requirements have resulted in fewer older people driving than otherwise would be expected, HLDI’s analysis shows. Those older drivers who do remain on the roads are somewhat less risky than older drivers in nearby states.

New Hampshire data point to a different conclusion:

New Hampshire didn’t see the same benefit from its road-test requirement, which was in effect for drivers age 75 and older until 2011. Renewal is required every five years for all drivers, regardless of age.

The 2011 test law was taken off the books in 2011.

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The study looked at crash levels in adjacent states and insurance claim rates. In Illinois, the states were Indiana, Iowa, Missouri and Wisconsin. In New Hampshire they were Vermont and Maine. The study results were considered imperfect for several reasons, including that there is more public transportation in Illinois than in New Hampshire.

The lack of consensus about the rate of tests of older drivers means that it will be harder for states to adopt laws that increase driver test frequency for the elderly. They also will bolster the claims of old people who say that they should not be discriminated against when many of them have had practice driving for decades.

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.