Older Driver Safety in the State of Georgia—Today’s Picture and Programs to Improve Tomorrow
Abstract
1. Background: Motor Vehicle fatalities are the second leading cause of unintentional injury death (following poisoning in 55 to 64 and falls in 65+) for adults over age 55 in Georgia. Motor Vehicle injury is the 6th and 4th leading cause of unintentional non-fatal injury for adults 55- 64 and 65+, respectively. The 55+ Driver safety program aims to decrease the catastrophic cost of crashes by reducing the number of motor vehicle crashes and improving the outcomes if a crash does occur.
2. Methods: The Georgia Traffic Safety Facts: Older Drivers includes traffic records data with a description of fatalities, injuries, licensing, population, geography, and driver attributes. Traffic data records includes FARS, state crash data, hospital, ED, EMS, and Trauma, and DDS driver license data. The Older Driver Task Team helped to determine areas of investigation for this fact sheet. Based on this data, the 55+ Driver Safety Program educates older drivers, their family members, health care providers, traffic engineers and planners, and other stakeholders via CarFit, the Yellow Dot program, annual virtual symposium and educational programs and presentations.
3. Anticipated Results: These programs are expected to reduce motor vehicle fatalities and injuries among 55+ Georgians.
4. Conclusions: Combining implementation with data has helped to drive the programmatic efforts of the 55+ Driver safety program.
Keywords
Injury Prevention, Transportation Safety, Older Driver
Older Driver Safety in the State of Georgia—Today’s Picture and Programs to Improve Tomorrow
1. Background: Motor Vehicle fatalities are the second leading cause of unintentional injury death (following poisoning in 55 to 64 and falls in 65+) for adults over age 55 in Georgia. Motor Vehicle injury is the 6th and 4th leading cause of unintentional non-fatal injury for adults 55- 64 and 65+, respectively. The 55+ Driver safety program aims to decrease the catastrophic cost of crashes by reducing the number of motor vehicle crashes and improving the outcomes if a crash does occur.
2. Methods: The Georgia Traffic Safety Facts: Older Drivers includes traffic records data with a description of fatalities, injuries, licensing, population, geography, and driver attributes. Traffic data records includes FARS, state crash data, hospital, ED, EMS, and Trauma, and DDS driver license data. The Older Driver Task Team helped to determine areas of investigation for this fact sheet. Based on this data, the 55+ Driver Safety Program educates older drivers, their family members, health care providers, traffic engineers and planners, and other stakeholders via CarFit, the Yellow Dot program, annual virtual symposium and educational programs and presentations.
3. Anticipated Results: These programs are expected to reduce motor vehicle fatalities and injuries among 55+ Georgians.
4. Conclusions: Combining implementation with data has helped to drive the programmatic efforts of the 55+ Driver safety program.
