Population trends spell more fatal and serious driver injuries. But it doesn’t have to be that way...

The projection comes from WSP research leader for road safety Bill Frith. He used 2020 road injury statistics and official population forecasts to estimate the likely situation forty years from now.  

It’s a problem compounded by another WSP research finding. Older drivers, who are generally more fragile and likely to suffer crash injury, report being more anxious behind the wheel. That’s due to other drivers making them nervous, speeding vehicles, and aggressive over-taking. Plus, our roads have become busier – a trend that’s set to continue.  

Older drivers are most uncomfortable dealing with glare (driving into the sun), driving at night when the road is unlit, and driving in heavy rain. High traffic intersections and right turns across traffic are other situations where they report having trouble. 

In some cases, these anxieties are causing older drivers to stop driving before they need to. That’s an issue, because, for an older person, travelling independently means more social inclusion and greater ability to contribute to society and the economy, says WSP technical director (human factors) Jared Thomas.  

So, what’s to be done? The best place to start, say Bill and Jared is creating a transport system that's more forgiving to older people. That will involve infrastructure improvements that benefit all drivers in the process.    

While newer roads, such as expressways and bypasses, are safer for all drivers and have been shown by WSP to reduce crashes, roads in the heart of our urban environments leave much to be desired. Improvements are needed to make them safer - not just for drivers, but pedestrians, cyclists and scooter users.  

Bill says improvements should include age-friendly intersections, moving to roundabouts, having good timings at lights, and better and brighter delineation of road signs and markings. 

“Our cities have road markings which tell drivers which lane to use, but many are invisible when the road is wet. Road markings are often only visible just before an intersection where they can be covered by a queue. Remedying these issues is relatively straightforward and will benefit all drivers.”  

Another part of the solution involves creating age-friendly routes and incorporating improved data into journey planning apps, including route choice, time of day, and weather information.  

Jared says Aotearoa needs to start involving older adults in designing and maintaining age-friendly roads. 

“To help with cloudier, aged eyes, we need to increase the amount of light and reflectivity of road signs and markings. We should be having 60+ year olds take part in reflectivity assessments.  

“We should start doing age-friendly road audits - involving older drivers in drive-throughs in poor visibility, wet, and busy conditions. A recent WSP project in Australia did just this to improve the design of the Bruce Highway using a virtual reality driving simulator.  

“Some of our best insights came from two older drivers who made wrong turns on a complex intersection. We were able to redesign it to make it age-friendly through optimised markings, road geometry and sign placement, which also saved $2 million in capital costs.” 

While Bill’s projection is confronting, it’s simply a forecast figure based on the status quo of today’s serious road-related injuries and deaths continuing.  

He says the projection is not set in stone, and we shouldn’t feel like it’s a fait accompli.  

“The important thing is to work to get the number of fatal and serious injuries trending downwards. Creating age-friendly roads will help. My greatest joy and privilege would be to watch the status quo not continue. But for that to happen, we need to be acting now.”