Teen and Senior Drivers at Greater Risk for Car Accidents

Tampa, FL (Law Firm Newswire) January 21, 2016 – Young drivers and senior drivers are the age groups that are involved in the most car accidents, in Florida and throughout the United States, according to national statistics.

Drivers age 16 to 29 have the highest rate of car accidents per miles driven. This may be unsurprising, as young drivers are inexperienced and may be more reckless. However, fatal crash rates also increase significantly for drivers age 70 to 74 and hit a peak for drivers 85 and older. That crash rate is of particular concern because the number of senior drivers is expected to increase significantly as the baby boomer generation ages. There were 36.8 million licensed senior drivers in 2013, and the U.S. Census Bureau projects that there will be 83.7 million by 2050.

“Drivers of any age need to exercise caution behind the wheel, but it is important to pay attention to increased risk factors that come with age,” said Robert Joyce, a Tampa car accident attorney with the law firm of Joyce & Reyes. “Problems such as vision loss can be a huge contributor to car accidents.”

In the state of Florida, drivers over the age of 80 who wish to renew their driver’s licenses must pass a vision test. In 2008, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety worked with the University of Alabama at Birmingham to study the Florida vision test requirements. They found that 80 percent of seniors who were eligible for driver’s license renewal took the test, and 7 percent failed. Within the group that did not attempt to renew their license, about 50 percent said they thought they could not pass the vision test. To pass the test, drivers are required to have 20/40 vision.

Learn more at http://www.joyceandreyespa.com Joyce and Reyes Law Firm, P.A. 307 S Hyde Park Ave Tampa, FL 33606 Call: 813.251.2007