Accident type distributions were compared in successive cohorts of older drivers, with focus on intersection accidents. It was thought that if the increasing share of intersection accidents is a truly age-related phenomenon, as opposed to cohort-related or time-related, it would remain fairly constant over time in different cohorts. The data consisted of Finnish traffic insurance data on private car accidents of drivers aged 60 yr or more who were legally responsible for causing the accident, and covered the years 1987-1995 (N = 56,481). Some changes in accident type distributions were found across cohorts. Among male drivers aged 60-79 yr, the portion of intersection accidents decreased in successive cohorts, so that the younger cohorts showed the age-typical accident picture at a somewhat later age than the older cohorts. In contrast, for male drivers aged 80 yr or more, there was an increase in the share of intersection accidents in more recent cohorts. Among female drivers, a decrease in intersection accidents only reached statistical significance for drivers aged 60-69 yr, and for the oldest age group (75+ yr) no change was observed. For both male and female drivers, the tendency to incur accidents at intersections increased with age in all cohorts. The occurrence of intersection accidents thus is both an age-related and a cohort-related phenomenon: age-related in the sense that it will emerge eventually, but with cohort-related variance in timing. (Author/publisher).
Abstract