A survey among road safety officers was carried out in 1978 by the county road safety officers' association of the county surveyors' society, together with TRRL. The rso's who replied said that difficulties that the elderly experienced in coping with traffic arose mainly from physical disabilities, declining skill in making judgements, changes in the traffic environment and inappropriate attitudes. Most rso's devote some resources to providing instruction or information for the elderly, but more for pedestrians than for drivers. Leaflets and talks were the most commonly used methods of communication. The amount of effort devoted to this by rso's bore some relationship to the proportion of the population who are elderly and was more closely related to the proportion of elderly people among the casualties in their local authority areas. (Author/publisher)
Abstract