Exploring the associations of demographics and scale measures with cognitive driving behavior among older drivers in China

Age-related changes and frailty are reasons for the high proportion of older drivers in certain types of crashes, such as giving right of way at intersections and turning left. The identified crash causes include the driver's demographics, driving style, cognitive function, and mental workload. This study aimed to explore the associations of demographics and scale measures with cognitive driving behavior. Thirty-nine drivers, consisting of twenty younger drivers (18-60 years old) and nineteen older drivers (above 60 years old), participated in driving simulation experiments after completing scale tests. The selected scale measures included the demographic questionnaire, Multidimensional Driving Style Inventory (MDSI-C), Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), Trail Making Test Part A (TMT-A) and Part B (TMT-B), and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Task Load Index (NASA-TLX) for obtaining subjective information from drivers. Driving scenarios were developed based on the driving characteristics of older adults to investigate age-related driving ability. The driving behavior parameters included reaction time, lateral stability, and driving speed, corresponding to reaction, perception, and execution. Three stepwise regression models showed that NASA-TLX, the interaction between age and driving experience, and the interaction between age and TMT-A significantly explained 53.3 % of reaction time variance; TMT-A, risk driving style, anxiety driving style, and gender significantly explained 53.5 % of lateral stability variance; TMT-A, NASA-TLX, and MMSE significantly explained 60.6 % of driving speed variance. Subsequently, the impact of four age-related predictor variables on driving behavior was further discussed. It is worth noting that a rich driving experience may compensate for driving performance. However cognitive impairment impairs this compensation. Driving behavior is influenced by a combination of various factors. Age, as a physiological indicator, is not sufficient to be a strong predictive factor for lateral stability and driving speed. The results provide a reference for traffic safety management departments to streamline driving suitability test procedures and propose targeted training methods for older drivers.

Senior driving under the influence: A five-year retrospective study of alcoholized road-users aged 70 and over

The demographic development in Germany shows a steady increase to senior citizens. The driving suitability of older road-users is of large social and political concern, because awareness and reactivity can be influenced by age-related diseases and potential medication, particularly in combination with the consumption of alcohol. This study provides an overview of senior road-users under the influence of alcohol. Therefore, 404 cases of drunken-driving by road-users aged 70 and over within the purview of the Institute of Legal Medicine at Justus-Liebig-University, Giessen, from the years 2009-2013 were evaluated in retrospect. The vast majority of the drivers were male (88.4% of the cases). Distribution of the blood alcohol concentrations were almost equally in male and female drivers with 62.8% of all cases showing a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of more than 1.1‰ and 10.9% a BAC of more than 2.0‰. In 48.5% of the cases, drunk driving was associated with an accident. 54.5% of the drivers stated suffering from at least one disease and 60% admitted a regular medication or an intake prior to the incident. Moreover, the collected data includes aspects such as the kind of traffic participation as well as neurological and physiological deficits of the road-users. If accidents were caused by drunk driving, the external circumstances and consequences of these accidents were analyzed, too. The evaluation revealed, that the standard medical examination protocol proved to be improbable to cover polypharmacy and multimorbidity of older alcoholized drivers. So, an evaluation and adaptation of the common medical examination protocol must be considered.