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Opening Statement |
Good Morning. My name is Debbie Hersman and it is my privilege to serve as the Chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board.
Welcome. Today we begin a two-day public Forum on Safety, Mobility and Aging Drivers.
Many of you are familiar with the Safety Board for its role in investigating transportation accidents and determining the probable cause of those accidents. However, the Safety Board also has the opportunity to bring leading experts together with the goal of understanding safety risks and identifying solutions, even when that activity is not tied to a specific accident.
Today, we meet for that purpose. We are convening this public forum to explore the safety issues related to the aging driver and to discuss possible strategies to prevent and reduce accidents, injuries and fatalities within this growing population.
America is aging. Baby boomers are now well into their middle years. People, on average, are living well into their 70’s compared to their 40’s just a century ago. And more and more ‘seniors’ are on the road than ever before.
In fact, thirty million licensed drivers in the U.S. are 65 or older, and the forecast is that by 2025, this age group will comprise more than 20 percent of the entire U.S. driving population – that’s 1 in 5 drivers.
There’s no precise way to define the term “aging driver.” Just as no two 17-year-olds have the same set of driving skills, capabilities and experience, neither do two 70-year-olds, two 80-year-olds, or two 90-year-olds. Driver performance varies widely in every age group, and age alone is not a good predictor of how well one will perform behind the wheel. Factors like cognition, motor skills, medical condition and injury tolerance are also predictive. So, when we talk about the aging driver, we mean age in relation to one’s capabilities, not age as in ‘old’ or ‘senior.’
Older drivers tend to be conscientious and safety-oriented – they wear their seatbelts, they may choose to forego driving when it’s dark or when the weather is poor, they are less likely to speed or drive intoxicated, and they drive fewer miles than other age groups. The good news is that the number of drivers age 70 and older involved in fatal crashes has decreased in the past decade– by 20% -- even though the number of licensed drivers in this age group and the miles logged increased. Despite these encouraging numbers, we also know that, when there is an accident, it is the older driver who is more likely to be killed or seriously injured. They simply don’t fare as well as younger drivers.
This forum is an exciting opportunity to better understand highway safety trends and discuss ways to minimize the safety risks for a growing segment of drivers. Whether we are the older driver deciding whether or not to set the keys aside, or that older driver’s family or community, we are all responsible for making sure that, no matter what your age or destination, everyone arrives safely.
While many of the issues we will discuss are topics that have been explored by other organizations in recent years, this is the first time that the NTSB is analyzing them in this format.
We are fortunate to have some of the leading experts in highway safety, academia, the medical community, and industry here with us. I’d like to take a moment to recognize some of these groups:
- AAA
- AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety
- Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers
- Insurance Institute for Highway Safety
- American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators
- American Occupational Therapy Association
- Governors Highway Safety Administration
- American Optometric Association
- International Association of Chiefs of Police
- National Institute on Aging
- Federal Highway Administration
- National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
- AARP
Thank you to all of the participants for sharing your time, your insight and your expertise.
As for our roadmap for the next two days – this morning, we will begin with a discussion of safety metrics –accidents, injuries and fatalities – and how we use these metrics to assess the risks associated with aging and mobility. As part of this discussion, we will also consider the travel characteristics and travel needs of an aging population.
We will then break for lunch, and I am pleased to announce that during the lunch break, both today and tomorrow, we will be showing the documentary, Old People Driving, by director Shaleece Haas. This documentary chronicles the stories of Milton (age 96) and Herbert (age 99) as they confront the end of their driving years, and I encourage you all to take the opportunity to view it.
This afternoon we dedicate a panel to occupant protection for aging drivers and passengers. This is an important issue because the core our mission at the Safety Board is to prevent death and injuries. We know that older adults face an increased likelihood of injury, hospitalization and death as a result of a crash. And because older drivers have a decreased injury tolerance, we will also examine how to better protect older adults in crashes, as well as the limitations of current occupant protection systems and the potential benefits of new technologies.
We will then turn to highway and vehicle design and how changes to those designs can affect the aging driver’s performance. Intelligent transportation technologies are also emerging as safety enhancers, so we will discuss ITS advances as well. The improvements to the vehicle environment discussed by this panel benefit not just the aging driver, but drivers in every age group.
Tomorrow morning we will resume by focusing on driver performance – how we qualify a driver’s capabilities, such as self-screening and driving assessments, and how we remediate performance decrements once those decrements are identified.
We will then conclude the forum with state programs and practices, including state licensing schemes, and the role of Medical Review Boards and state safety programs.
This is a lot of ground to cover in two days. It is my hope that our dialogue will be honest and open. For some our discussion may be eye-opening, while for others it may be an opportunity to dispel some of the many myths and misunderstandings about the aging driver. But even more significantly, this forum likely represents a collaborative launching point towards improved highway safety for us all.
Now, a few housekeeping items -
As a reminder, please silence your cell phones and familiarize yourself with the emergency exits available to you in the front and the back of the room.
We welcome the public to the forum, both those in the audience and those viewing via webcast on the NTSB’s web site.
Copies of the agenda are available in the lobby outside the Boardroom. The agenda, along with biographical information of the participants and descriptions of the parties, are also posted on the Safety Board’s website.
We've invited twenty panelists and over a dozen organizations to take part in this forum. Notably, there are more organizations participating as parties in this forum than is generally typical at an accident hearing. This stems from our desire to fully air the range of voices on this topic. For the invited parties, I urge you to work through your spokesperson and to rotate the responsibility of spokesperson as we move through the panels. You will find “Question cards” on your tables on which to pass questions to your spokesperson.
Because we have such a full agenda, we appreciate your cooperation in helping us keep on schedule, and ask that panelists respect time limits and keep discussions focused on the subject at hand, rather than slip into topics covered by other panels.
We recognize that not all stakeholders are represented in person at this forum. Because it was not possible to accommodate everyone who wanted to participate, those individuals and organizations who wish to submit written comments may do so until November 30, 2010.
Finally, I want to take a moment to thank the NTSB staff for their efforts in organizing and preparing for this forum. Undertakings of this scope do not simply happen – they are the end product of many months of long hours and meticulous preparation and planning. Thank you, staff, for your dedication and hard work.
In particular, I would like to recognize the technical staff who really made this forum possible: Dr. Deborah Bruce, Dr. Robert Molloy, Dr. Jana Price, and Dennis Collins of the Office of Highway Safety; Dr. Mitch Garber, Dr. Elisa Braver, Dr. Ivan Cheung and Dr. Kristin Poland from the Office of Research and Engineering; and Stephanie Davis, Steve Blackistone and Danielle Roeber from the Office of Communications. I also appreciate the administrative, technical and press support provided by Avis Clark, Vickie Wall, Antion Downs, Rochelle Hall, Christine Fortin, Robert Turner, and Bridget Serchak.
We’re now ready to begin.
