[Kyra Phillips, Cnn Anchor:] Driving while old. Yesterday's disaster at the Santa Monica farmer's market highlights the delicate issue of elderly drivers. Most states make little or no attempting to rein in driving privileges based on old age alone. And there may be, in fact, be a little statistical basis for any such curbs. Joining me with stats and insights is Bella Dinh-Zarr, the AAA's director of national safety policy in Washington. Bella, thanks for being with us.
[Bella Dinh-zarr, Aaa Director Of National Safety Policy:] Thanks for having me.
[Phillips:] Well, do you think elderly folks are getting a bad rap here?
[Dinh-zarr:] Well, I think this was a terribly sad case. But we shouldn't forget that in most cases older drivers are wiser drivers. They do a lot of safe things when they're on the road, like wearing their seat belts and not speeding as much. So and in most cases, although this crash was an exception, older drivers tend to harm themselves. I guess the challenge here is to really how can we keep our entire population safe, but especially our aging population?
[Phillips:] And this 86-year-old had said that he put the wrong foot on the wrong pedal. Is this something that happens with younger drivers, also? Are there stats that exist that say elderly people do this more than younger or vice versa?
[Dinh-zarr:] Well, as we age, we all experience some physical declines, and these functional capacities, such as flexibility, vision, reflex time, and these type of decision making activities, they do change as we age. So that's why it's so important for us to offer different types of assistance to help keep older drivers stay safe when they are driving.
[Phillips:] Do you think that driving restrictions should be based on chronological age?
[Dinh-zarr:] That's a difficult issue, because our skills and our changes in our bodies happen so differently with every person. So really we should look at how we can help people very early on before these functional declines happen for anyone. And that way before instead of setting a specific age, we can help people and prevent these things from happening before they are even a problem.
[Phillips:] How do you do that? Do you do more senior friendly road designs? I mean, is that actually something that AAA works toward?
[Dinh-zarr:] Yes, that's an excellent point. There are really three big elements that we can focus on as a country and as a society to help this really precious part of our population, the aging population. And we'll all be reaching that someday. Senior friendly road design is part of AAA's lifelong safe mobility initiative. And that's a call to Congress and all of our communities to make our road design safer, intersections safer, to make bigger and better signs. As we age, we all experience changes. And those will help people of every age, as they drive. But there are also other things we can do personally outside of the road, such as making sure we get our physical check-ups with our physicians and attending driver improvement courses, such as a mature operators course, for example, which AAA runs. And finally, you know, for those of us who feel we can no longer drive safely, then we should have alternative forms of transportation, like supplemental transportation programs, so that we can keep staying mobile because that's such a vital and important part of our life and of our mental health and of staying active and independent.
[Phillips:] Sure, and if you're not able to make the decisions yourself, you've got to have people who love you and care for you to say "Hey, it's time to stop driving." I was looking through some of the statistics and according to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, crash rate per mile for teen sincere four times higher than adults. That's pretty interesting.
[Dinh-zarr:] Yes, actually, teenagers have the highest crash rate per vehicle mile traveled. And older drivers over 65 are in the second place. But the difference is that older drivers have the experience that teenagers lack. And with that experience, they are more willing to do things that will keep them safe and perhaps if we give them the assistance and the tools that are needed, our older population will voluntarily help keep themselves safer and the entire population.
[Phillips:] Bella Dinh-Zarr, thank you so much for your time. We appreciate it.
[Dinh-zarr:] Thank you.