Apples for Health- Doctors seek to keep seniors on the road

Doctors seek to keep seniors on the road

OTTAWA, March 2 (UPI) -- Two Canadian doctors say older drivers should be encouraged to stay on the road because the vast majority of them are safe drivers.

Dr. Malcolm Hing and Dr. Shawn Marshall say the vast majority of seniors are safe to drive and are trying to devise ways -- such as a conditional license allows daylight driving -- to help keep seniors stay on the road.

"If an older driver is in an accident, often the media will call for all older drivers to be removed or tested," Marshall told the Ottawa Citizen. "Which is ironic, because literature supports that some of the safest drivers on the road are older drivers."

The doctors say they are concerned about the lack of empirical information on senior driving and they founded a research group -- the Canadian Driving Research Initiative for Vehicular Safety in the Elderly -- which operates out of the Ottawa Health Research Institute.

After a pilot study, the CanDRIVE researchers are beginning a nationwide study that will track 1,000 drivers in eight Canadian cities for five years starting this spring. The researchers are looking for drivers age 70 and older with 1996 or newer vehicles that can accommodate the computers used in the study.