"High Traffic Accident Rate Among Elderly Drivers, But Fatality Rate Is Even More Serious"

[Asia Economy Reporter Oh Hyung-gil] The rate of traffic accidents increases with elderly drivers, but the fatality rate is even more severe, according to compiled data.

On the 15th, the Samsung Traffic Safety Culture Research Institute reported that over the past five years, traffic accidents caused by elderly drivers in South Korea have increased by about 1.5 times.

According to traffic accident statistics from the National Police Agency, the number of accidents involving elderly drivers rose from 20,275 cases in 2014 to 30,012 cases in 2018. The number of injured persons also showed an increasing trend, from 29,420 in 2014 to 43,469 in 2018.

In particular, in 2018, the number of deaths per 10,000 licensed elderly drivers was 2.75, which is 3.6 times higher than that of the 30s age group (0.76).

While elderly drivers have a high accident rate as parties involved in traffic accidents, the severity of accidents, i.e., the fatality rate, is even more serious. Frequent accidents involving elderly drivers due to factors such as poor driving operation skills have raised social awareness.

The age group with the highest proportion of serious injury accidents among all accidents is analyzed to be elderly drivers aged 65 and over, and the fatality rate of accidents increases as the age of the offending driver rises.

According to the Korea Road Traffic Authority, the proportion of serious injury accidents among those aged 65 and over reaches 37.4%, while it is 35.0% for ages 61?65, 34.7% for ages 51?60, and 34.9% for ages 41?50.

The institute suggested measures for the safety management of elderly drivers, including advanced driver’s license systems such as voluntary license surrender and conditional licenses, the spread of advanced safety devices, improvement of mobility in traffic-vulnerable areas, and the preparation of elderly driver-friendly road design and operation guidelines.

The institute stated, "Although a nationwide support system to encourage voluntary surrender of driver’s licenses is in place, the voluntary surrender rate among elderly drivers in 2018 was 0.4%, which is significantly lower compared to Japan’s 2.2%. To increase the voluntary surrender rate, it is necessary to discover various incentives beyond providing transportation cards or local gift certificates, such as discounts at local affiliated stores and free use of city buses. Additionally, it is important to secure mobility so that elderly people do not experience inconvenience in local travel after surrendering their driver’s licenses."

It added, "To reduce traffic accidents caused by elderly drivers’ operational errors such as steering and braking mistakes, support and mandatory installation of devices like sudden start prevention devices, sudden braking prevention devices, and Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) should be promoted. The mandatory installation of advanced safety devices such as forward collision warning systems, automatic emergency braking systems, and lane departure warning systems on new vehicles should be considered, along with allowing conditional driving only for vehicles equipped with these advanced safety devices."