ELDERLY ROAD users in Ireland are more than 1½ times more likely to die on the roads than those under 65, according to a new study to be published in Brussels today.
The report by the European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) finds that in Ireland an average of more than 13 elderly people per 100,000 elderly population die on the roads each year, compared with an average of eight fatalities per 100,000 of the population below that age.
Ireland is at number 21 out of the list of 30 countries ranked in terms of road safety for those over the age of 65. The report finds that Malta, the UK and Sweden are the safest places for older people using the roads, while Lithuania, Cyprus and Poland are the most dangerous ones.
In the UK, an average of only six elderly people per 100,000 elderly population die each year, with the risk for those below 65 broadly the same. In Latvia, Malta, Estonia, Spain, Lithuania and Slovenia older people have a lower risk of dying on the roads than the rest of the population, according to the ETSC survey.
Portugal, Israel and France recorded the biggest reduction in elderly deaths on the road per population, with 8 per cent, 7 per cent and 6 per cent average annual reductions respectively. Cyprus, Denmark, Slovenia, Greece, Switzerland, Norway, Slovakia, Finland, the Netherlands, Spain and the UK follow with reductions above the EU average of 3.7 per cent.
Ireland reduced elderly road deaths by below the EU average, with an average annual drop of 3.21 per cent since 1997, according to the survey.
Slowest progress was recorded in Latvia and Bulgaria, where it has been less than 2 per cent. In Romania numbers of elderly deaths per population rose by 2 per cent over the last six years.
Some 8,000 older people die in road crashes in the European Union per annum, accounting for one-fifth of all fatalities. However, the ETSC warns that by 2050 a rising elderly population will see over 65s accounting for one in three road fatalities.
In the report, the World Health Organisation calls for an “urgent rethink” of transport policies to reduce the number of older people dying on European roads.
“The very old, the very young and the disabled are most at risk on European roads,” said Dr Dinesh Sethi from the WHO’s regional office for Europe. “In particular as the elderly are less agile and resilient, the likelihood of being killed as a pedestrian is more than twice that for younger adults.
“As a consequence, concern for their vulnerability is increasing and there is an urgent call for a rethink of transport policies to address the specific needs of our growing ageing population.”
Liisa Hakamies-Blomqvist, co-chair of the OECD expert group on ageing and transport, said governments “must increasingly provide public transport alternatives and general infrastructure improvements to serve the mobility needs of the senior citizens”.
“Car manufacturers have to start developing vehicles with a focus on older drivers’ limitations and requirements. Without these and other improvements each one of us will find him or herself at growing risk of being killed on the road as we grow old,” she said.
