Older Women’s Travel Patterns and Road Accident Involvement in Britain

This paper uses British data as its primary source, supplemented with data from Sweden and the United States, to analyze the mobility and safety of female and male car drivers and pedestrians. In European countries and in North America, fewer women than men are killed or injured in traffic accidents as pedestrians or car drivers. In terms of casualty rates per population, where appropriate per driving license, per distance driven, and per journey, women younger than 60 have a lower risk than men of both injuring themselves and of injuring other road users. At all adult ages, women travel more than men as car passengers, less as car drivers, and make more journeys by local public transport. Women make more journeys as pedestrians than men below the age of 65, but men make more journeys than women in older age. Younger women are significantly safer drivers than men, but women cease to be safer drivers over the age of 60 or 70. The same applies to the risk they pose to other road users, as measured by their risk of killing a pedestrian. There is some evidence that older women voluntarily restrict the amount of driving they do at younger ages than men, but there is no evidence that in Britain they surrender driving licenses at a younger age than male drivers. The fatality rate per journey as a pedestrian is higher than that as a car driver. Any policy that caused trips by those age 70 and over to transfer from being made by car to being made on foot would increase the total fatalities and serious injuries in traffic accidents.

• Record URL:
  http://www.trb.org/Publications/Blurbs/165294.aspx
• 
• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://www.trb.org/Main/Blurbs/Womens_Issues_in_Transportation_Summary_of_the_4th_165294.aspx
• Authors:
  • Mitchell, Christopher G B
• Conference:
  • 4th International Conference on Women's Issues in Transportation
  • Location: Irvine California, United States
  • Date: 2009-10-27 to 2009-10-30
• Publication Date: 2011

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Print
• Features: Figures; References;
• Pagination: pp 44-54
• Monograph Title: Women's Issues in Transportation: Summary of the 4th International Conference. Volume 2: Technical Papers
• Serial:
  • Transportation Research Board Conference Proceedings
  • Volume: 2
  • Issue Number: 46
  • Publisher: Transportation Research Board
  • ISSN: 1073-1652

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Aged; Aged drivers; Crashes; Fatalities; Females; Pedestrian vehicle crashes; Pedestrians; Travel patterns
• Geographic Terms: United Kingdom
• Subject Areas: Highways; Pedestrians and Bicyclists; Safety and Human Factors; I83: Accidents and the Human Factor;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01339654
• Record Type: Publication
• ISBN: 9780309160834
• Files: TRIS, TRB
• Created Date: May 11 2011 2:21PM