When each of our three children turned 15 years old, it became my job to teach them how to be safe, responsible drivers. I taught them on automatic and manual transmissions in parking lots after work and on weekends. Some of the teaching I did was the mechanics of how to work the car and integrate all the information that you get as a new driver. As a new driver such simple things as staying in your lane while looking ahead, preparing for a turn while also watching the bicyclist ahead or watching for stop signs and uncontrolled intersections can feel overwhelming.

As boomers begin to retire, we will all see and experience what it will mean to have so many older drivers on the road. Many will experience the loss of independence or limitations in mobility as medical conditions, physical limitations or prescription drugs cause concerns in continuing to be a safe driver. In our family we needed to find a respectful but firm approach to helping parents reduce their driving and for one parent to eliminate driving altogether. That was a very difficult series of conversations.

In my reading around the issues of older drivers, there seems to be three areas of focus where there are opportunities for change: the driver, the car and the road.

Helping older drivers has been the focus of several longtime programs that seek to improve older drivers’ skills and help to increase their safety on the road. Taking a driver’s education approach can be informative and offer an independent perspective about how to modify driving habits for the older driver. There are also driver focused approaches to safety that use occupational therapy evaluation techniques to see how the car fits an older driver. The position of the steering wheel, mirrors, seat belts and head restraint along with possible modifications to the gas and brake pedals can all assist in having a car fit the driver better and making him safer as well as more comfortable in the process.

What kind of elder-friendly car to drive in the future will no doubt offer a fabulous array of choices. We already can see how technology in a car can be used to fit each driver with personal settings, a “heads up display” for seeing information on the windshield and warning sensors that tell us when we have wandered out of our lane or are too close to the car in front of us. Research that examines the effects of physical limitations or diminished reaction times is currently under way.

When it comes to the road itself, we can expect to see changes that will be a direct result of the increased number of older drivers. Several years ago in Michigan, a demonstration project examined the impacts of road-safety improvements in several dangerous intersections. Through several small changes to key intersections, there were up to 50 percent fewer accidents and 70 percent fewer injuries as a direct result of the pilot project. The changes made were to replace old or missing signs with new and larger signs. Traffic signals were improved through replacement of the old ones with new, larger signals and using a 12-inch signal lens to increase visibility. Intersections also were improved with left turn lanes and left turn signals to eliminate the accidents and injuries caused by drivers trying to make a left turn without the benefit of a left turn lane. All of these road safety improvements benefit the older driver.

I am hopeful that these future changes will help keep us all safely on the road for many years to come.

Scott Bond is the Director of Senior and Disability Services for Oregon Cascades West Council of Governments, the Area Agency on Aging for Benton, Linn, and Lincoln counties. He can be reached at 541-812-6008 or by e-mail at sbond@

ocwcog.org.