‘Mobility gap’ threatens seniors

Soon to be 20% of pop

David Crossley, Nov 15, 10.

Miles driven by older drivers are going up and fatal crashes involving seniors coming down, but too often they are forced to choose between safety and being able to get around, according to a National Transportation Safety Board forum on transportation and aging reported at Aging at MSNBC.com. Experts say keeping those drivers safe and mobile is a challenge with profound implications:

Within 15 years more than one in five licensed drivers will be 65 or older, the safety board said. Their number will nearly double, from 30 million today to about 57 million in 2030, according to the Government Accountability Office.

Smarter cars and better designed roads may help keep them stay behind the wheel longer.

But eventually most people will outlive their driving ability — men by an average of six years and women by an average of 10 years. And since fewer Americans relocate when they retire, many of them probably will continue to live in suburban homes.

The result is a “mobility gap,” Joseph Coughlin, head of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s AgeLab, which develops technologies aimed at keeping older people active, said in an interview.

“For many, our homes will not be just a place to age, it will also be house arrest,” said Coughlin.

And University of Arizona professor Sandra Rosenbloom, an authority on transportation on aging, sums this predicament up by saying:

“As people get older and lose the ability to drive, they narrow and narrow their circle of friends and their circle of activities until it gets to the point where they are housebound and they don’t move at all.”

Aging at MSNBC.com
Aging Agenda for Houston-Harris County (mobility)
Photo: Associated Press