Distracted driving in elderly and middle-aged drivers

• Published in: Accident analysis and prevention 2012-03, Vol.45 (2), p.711-717
• Main Authors: Thompson, Kelsey R., Johnson, Amy M., Emerson, Jamie L., Dawson, Jeffrey D., Boer, Erwin R., Rizzo, Matthew
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adult; Aged; Aging - psychology; Attention; Automobile Driving - psychology; Automobiles; Automotive engineering; Awareness; Cognitive decline; Distracted driving; Elderly people; Female; Forensic engineering; Humans; Instrumented vehicle; Male; Middle Aged; Multitasking; Neuropsychological Tests; Older driver safety; Orientation; Problem Solving; Psychomotor Performance; Reaction Time; Safety; Safety critical; Serial Learning; Serialization; Speech Perception; Steering; Tasks; Workload - psychology
• ISSN: 0001-4575; 1879-2057
• DOI: 10.1016/j.aap.2011.09.040

► Examined distracted driving in elderly and middle-aged drivers. ► Distracted driving affected steering and speed control in both groups. ► Elderly drivers showed a serialization of behavior during distraction. ► Elderly drivers made more safety errors than middle-aged drivers during distraction. ► Distracted driving increased safety errors in both groups. Automobile driving is a safety-critical real-world example of multitasking. A variety of roadway and in-vehicle distracter tasks create information processing loads that compete for the neural resources needed to drive safely. Drivers with mind and brain aging may be particularly susceptible to distraction due to waning cognitive resources and control over attention. This study examined distracted driving performance in an instrumented vehicle (IV) in 86 elderly (mean=72.5 years, SD=5.0 years) and 51 middle-aged drivers (mean=53.7 years, SD=9.3 year) under a concurrent auditory–verbal processing load created by the Paced Auditory Serial Addition Task (PASAT). Compared to baseline (no-task) driving performance, distraction was associated with reduced steering control in both groups, with middle-aged drivers showing a greater increase in steering variability. The elderly drove slower and showed decreased speed variability during distraction compared to middle-aged drivers. They also tended to “freeze up”, spending significantly more time holding the gas pedal steady, another tactic that may mitigate time pressured integration and control of information, thereby freeing mental resources to maintain situation awareness. While 39% of elderly and 43% of middle-aged drivers committed significantly more driving safety errors during distraction, 28% and 18%, respectively, actually improved, compatible with allocation of attention resources to safety critical tasks under a cognitive load.