If you want to know what a future filled with older drivers looks like, look no further than Florida.
There, in many parts, the "blue-rinse set" dominate the roadways thanks to an aging population, an influx of baby boomers, and the perennial arrival of snowbirds.
What you'll also find in Florida are roads that have been built with these aging drivers in mind, with innovations designed to minimize the kinds of accidents that seniors have most. And some of those innovations could be coming to a road or highway near you.
Road designers are thinking about the aging population not because they think seniors are unsafe. For the most part, senior drivers are some of the safest on the road, since they're less likely to speed and more likely to follow the rules of the road. But when they do have accidents, they tend to have similar kinds.
Muscle stiffness means seniors can have trouble maneuvering over-the-shoulder blind-spot checks. Dimming eyesight means they often have trouble reading signs or spotting pedestrians. And slower response times and perceptual changes mean they can misjudge oncoming traffic, especially while trying to turn left or merging into traffic.
So highway and road designers are working to accommodate the needs of aging drivers, making the roads safer for everyone in turn.
One thing you'll notice about many of the highways in Florida is that the road markings are brighter. That's because pavement stripes on state highways have been widened from four inches to six inches, using reflective paint that seniors have an easier time seeing at night and during rain.
It's a simple change but one that can make a huge amount of difference to drivers of any age and it's just the kinds of change the Canadian Automobile Association would like to see implemented across Canada.
Earlier this year, the auto group released a report called "Senior Drivers and Highway Design." The report outlines some basic infrastructure upgrades could go a long way to making roads safer for Canada's growing number of senior drivers - and others too.
"We were thinking of seniors when we commissioned this paper and it was aimed at making roads safer for them, but of course the spinoff is these changes would make roads safer for everyone," the CAA's Dean Morin told CTV.ca.
Here are a few of the changes they'd like to see:
More dedicated left-hand turn lanes
Research has shown that older drivers tend to misjudge the speed of oncoming traffic while turning left. That's partly because they tend to have trouble craning their necks, have a decreased field of view, and problems with perception. In fact, according to research done in the U.S., 37 per cent of traffic-related fatalities in drivers age 65 and over occur at intersection compared to just 18 per cent of fatalities among those aged 26 to 64. Dedicated turn lanes, complete with advanced green turn signals and turning lanes that line up with the turn lanes in the opposite directions would help remove this guesswork, the CAA contends.
More roundabouts
Roundabouts are common in Europe but mostly rare in Canada. That's too bad, the CAA says, because roundabouts have been shown to dramatically reduce the potential for serious crashes compared with conventional intersections. That's primarily because all drivers move in the same direction in a roundabout and generally at slow speeds. While crashes can occur, they are rarely of the high-speed or head-on variety that are so dangerous. While drivers tend to find roundabouts confusing at first and take a while to get used to, research suggests they are safer than stop-sign-based intersections. But roundabouts are costly to install on existing roads, since they require a complete rebuild of an intersection. While Morin says he's seen them in Ottawa and P.E.I., the uptake on roundabouts in Canada has been slow.
Larger road and street signs
Clear, simple road signs with comprehensible symbols could go a long way to helping aging drivers, who tend to take longer to process information as compared to younger drivers. Their placement is also key. Street signs placed overhead are safer than signs on a corner, since they keep the driver's eyes on the road. As well, signs that are placed a good distance ahead of an intersection that name cross streets coming ahead can also help seniors who take longer to make lane-change decisions. These kinds of signs are being commonplace in newer developments and suburbs but some cities have been slow to adopt them, presumably because of costs.
Innovations around the world
For further insight into design changes that could make roads safer for seniors in Canada, one need only look to major metropolitans around the world.
For example, in Australia, some cities have brought in changes to make it easier for pedestrians to cross busy roads -- and for aging drivers to see them. "High-emphasis crosswalks" with large lateral stripe markings and plenty of signage are largely replacing conventional crosswalk markings.
In Sydney, many intersections feature raised crosswalks to ensure drivers see pedestrians, while others have "refuge islands" with low fencing, to give pedestrians a place to wait if they don't make it all the way across.
In Tokyo and some other cities in Japan, pedestrians and cyclists are kept safe with wide sidewalks and even barrier-separated bicycle lanes -- even at the crosswalks. At the busiest multi-lane intersections in Tokyo, pedestrians are encouraged to forget about crossing the road altogether and made to use either pedestrian overpasses or tunnels. The Las Vegas Strip uses a similar system to contain its thousands of pedestrians.
Japan has also been experimenting with such things as coloured pavement, which delineate bike lanes and transit lanes and guide drivers along lanes, making it easier for older drivers and all drivers to negotiate complex intersections.
Other innovations designed to increase safety have been less well-received. Michigan's left-land turn system comes to mind. This much-maligned system requires drivers wanting to turn left to first make a right turn, travel down the road a bit, then make a legal U-turn in the median strip and then drive straight through the intersection.
The Michigan Left has been used across the state for over four decades now, and while locals take it for granted, it often confuses visitors and few other states have adopted the system. That's despite the fact that the state says Michigan Lefts have reduced crashes at intersections by 30 to 60 per cent, particularly head-on crashes during left-turns.
