Over 40,000 Class 3 drivers aged 70 or more who had some traffic incidents on their driving records, but not so many as to make them "negligent operators" under California law, were randomly divided into four groups. One group received educational material (pamphlets, brochures) relating to older driver traffic safety, a resource list of Internet addresses and phone numbers for driving- or elder-oriented organizations, a questionnaire, and a cover letter. A second received only the resource list, questionnaire, and cover letter, while a third received the questionnaire and cover letter, and the fourth was not contacted in any way. There was no significant effect on either subsequent crashes or traffic convictions as a function of the amount of material sent. For the questionnaire, group return rates ranged from 43% to 62%, and several differences were found among the respondents consistent with greater knowledge among those who were sent the educational material. The report ends with a discussion of lessons learned with respect to surveying people—and elderly people specifically—and includes voluminous appendices containing, in part, much of the educational material, the resource list, a presentation of respondent group attitudes toward DMV, and illustrative pages from DMV's new Senior Web Site. (Author/publisher)
Abstract