Are Older Drivers Different In The US And Italy

This paper comparing older drivers in the United States and in Italy is from the proceedings of 14th international Conference on Urban Transport and the Environment in the 21st Century, which was held in Malta in 2008. The authors note that larger numbers of over 65 year-olds are continuing to drive into their old age, mainly because of the advances in medicine and a longer active working life. They compare the driver behavior differences between two samples of older drivers in two countries with very different driving habits, driving regulations and road infrastructure conditions. Their study focused on four maneuvers: merging from a ramp, changing lanes, turning left and night driving. The data gathered were analyzed using multidimensional techniques that enabled to identify groups having homogeneous behavior in each sample. Their results show that older drivers in the United States and Italy are similar but they have a different perspective of risk that varies depending on several factors including medical conditions, driving habits, driving conditions. For the first maneuver, merging from a ramp, older drivers in the U.S. behave in a more consistent and self-assured manner, 50% accelerating when merging and 19.7% merging without changing speed. By contrast, the Italian drivers were found to be less confident, 33% braking when merging, 19.3% changing speed continuously, and 21% proceeding slowly. For the changing maneuver, half the U.S. drivers reported having no difficulty in changing lanes, whereas 78.6% of Italian drivers stated they waited for the vehicle approaching from behind to pass before changing lane; these differences can be explained by different laws regarding passing in the two countries. Overall, U.S. drivers were found to be taking a more prudent approach to driving than their Italian counterparts.