Older drivers and their side vision blind spot
While many older drivers appreciate their reaction time is slower and concentrate on traffic coming head-on towards them, there is a real road danger for these drivers with vehicles coming from side roads.
An American study at the University of Massachusetts Human Performance Laboratory, found that drivers 70 to 89 can most effectively learn to use more side-to-side glances when turning at intersections if they practise adding more side glances in a hands-on driving simulator rather than listening in a lecture.
Researcher Matthew Romoser said that “rear-end, head-on, single-car and car-pedestrian accidents actually decrease among older drivers in this age group, probably because they do self-regulate.
“But side-impact crashes increase markedly over 70 and findings from our head-movement studies suggest that older drivers fail to compensate for the loss of peripheral processing,” he said.
“They don’t use enough side-to-side glances at intersections so they’re having accidents. The problem is that, for some older drivers, once they cross the threshold into the intersection while making a turn, side-to-side scanning stops altogether.
“This is worrisome because without an additional quick glance over the shoulder at the beginning of a turn older drivers are likely to miss the sudden emergence of a previously unseen car.”
Mr Romoser said he favoured a tiered training approach in which motor vehicle licensing agencies could screen drivers first on relevant variables such as response time, peripheral information processing and cognitive workload capacity before re-licensing older drivers.
He said that the university was now designing a training program for older adults that could be used effectively by driving instruction schools.
