Citation

Evans L. Annu. Proc. Assoc. Adv. Automot. Med. 1999; 43: 225-238.

Affiliation

General Motors Research and Development Center, Warren, Michigan, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1999, Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

An earlier paper (Risk of fatality from physical trauma versus sex and age; J Trauma 28: 368-378, 1988) found that in identical crashes, 70-year olds are about 3 times as likely to die as 20-year olds. If populations of 70-year-old and 20-year-old drivers had identical crash experience, the 200% higher rate for the older drivers could be erroneously attributed to driver error. It is important to evaluate how robust and repeatable the findings of the earlier paper are because they are so central to the understanding of older drivers. This paper focuses on 1 of 2 questions in the earlier paper, namely, how female compared to male risk changes with increasing age. The present study builds on the earlier one by examining vehicle occupants killed in light trucks, cars, and motorcycles. The earlier study used under 100,000 fatalities; the present study uses 123,678 fatalities. As no specific data item can contribute to both studies, the present investigation is independent of the earlier one. Close agreement is found between the results of the 2 studies, thus solidifying the interpretation that findings are of a general nature and not dependent on specific data sets. In identical crashes, females from about age 10 to about age 55 are more likely to die than are males. However, there is no indication of a difference in risk dependent on sex for older drivers.

Language: en