The traffic behaviour of elderly male automobile drivers in Gothenburg, Sweden

Abstract

406 drivers over 60 years of age with automobile licences issued in Gothenburg, Sweden, were asked by a questionnaire about their driving habits in 1971. 126 drivers around 40 years of age have constituted a comparison group. A large proportion of the older drivers declared that they no longer drove their cars. More than half the number of drivers over 75 years of age and a quarter of the drivers between 65 and 69 years of age had given up driving voluntarily because of age and illness. Self-selection thus seems to be one of several factors of great importance when judging the traffic safety risks of elderly drivers. The annual distance driven by the older driver groups was shorter than in the younger age-group. The older drivers used their cars for other purposes than younger drivers and they also avoided driving in darkness, on icy roads, and in unknown cities to a far greater extent than younger drivers. The total number of accidents and offences during the older drivers' whole life-span as drivers was lower than the corresponding figures in the younger age-group. In our opinion this may depend on the shorter annual distance driven by the older drivers, the change in traffic density in the investigation area, but also to a great extent on the older drivers awareness of their reduced capacity. Their accident and offence rate during a three-year-period is quite similar to the rate in the comparison group.