Observational study finds urban environments increase unsafe driving behaviors in older adults via altered driving exposure, highlighting the role of neighborhood design in driver safety.
Despite the growing number of older adult drivers, knowledge on factors influencing their driving safety from device-collected behavior data in naturalistic driving environment is limited. This study utilizes GPS tracked driving data of 1,200 older adults in the US to examine the link between home neighborhood environment, driving exposure, and driving safety behaviors. Structural equation model results show that urban older adults exhibited more frequent events of very high-speed driving (>80 mile/h, 130 km/h), rapid decelerations, and higher right-to-left turn ratios than their suburban and rural counterparts. This is partially explained by differences in driving exposure (i.e., more trips on high-speed roads, during nighttime, and shorter distances). Notably, living in neighborhoods with higher auto-oriented road densities and more nighttime destinations contribute substantially to unsafe driving behaviors.
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Shi et al. (2024) studied this question.
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