“A pedestrian in the U.S. is someone walking to his car.” This wry definition comes from Dean Kamen, the inventor of the Segway.  Its humor rests on the assumption that hardly any Americans do much walking, an assumption that evidence suggests is solid.

By contrast, a whopping 46 percent of all trips in the Netherlands are non-motorized. That means the Dutch do an awful lot of bike riding. Almost surely, they do a fair amount of walking too. Of course, theirs is a geographically small country without hills with a much more homogeneous citizenry than ours.

Transportation experts hold out no hope for us Americans changing our ways anytime soon. Those who assembled this September at MIT’s AgeLab, from around the country and a dozen other nations, agreed that most of us will remain dependant on the automobile. After all, we are a huge nation in which fully three fourths of us live in suburbs or rural areas, most of which places lack adequate public transportation.

People like me, urban dwellers who can walk to all our public services and do, are anomalies in American society. Planning for elders who live elsewhere cannot, I’m afraid, take us as models. Even if they want to walk, most Americans cannot get where they want to go simply by using their feet. And most often few alternative modes of transportation will get them to their planned destination.

So the question most professionals in the field of transportation ask is: How can we better provide for the safety of older automobile drivers and others? On various fronts they continue to explore ways of ensuring safer driving better adapted to the special needs of many elders. All are agreed that a whole lot can be done.

About the present situation there is widespread consensus on several points. First, drivers over age 65 are involved in fewer accidents, per capita, than are those younger. The instances of horrible events such as this past summer’s catastrophe in Santa Monica where ten people were killed by an elderly Californian who had lost control of his car are comparatively rare. Secondly, when older drivers do get into accidents their chances of being seriously injured or killed are much higher than those of younger drivers.

Contrary to popular impression, when older people experience disability they do not take public transportation even where it is available. Instead, they first give up using public transportation, then they abandon walking. That is because the easiest thing they can do is to drive or be a passenger.

There is also wide agreement that testing older drivers for their competence on the road does not work when it is made mandatory. Better are systems that target applicants for licenses who are considered at higher risk. Perhaps the best way to test such drivers is by giving them a personal guide who can help determine if they are still capable of safe driving.

Besides aiming to improve drivers’ capability behind the wheel, researchers envision changes in the automobiles they drive. Older drivers use seat belts more that those younger but there are different kinds of seat belts that could be introduced. A belt that fits over the torso with an X shape might give greater protection and so could a Y-shaped belt.

The third area that bears improvement is the roadway. Electronic systems that warn of collisions, for example, could prove beneficial although they can be tricky to rely on. Installing traffic calming modifications at sites where major roads cross such as raised and gritty surfaces can slow down traffic.

Much more could be done to protect drivers, improve vehicles, and modify roadways than we have seen up introduced up to now. With the arrival of the Baby Boomers into beginning old age, all drivers will presumably profit from technological enhancements that can be expected.

The changes talked about now should benefit everybody. An Irish geriatrician at the MIT event, Desmond O’Neill of Trinity College, quoted a two-line rule of thumb for planners.

“If you design for the old, you include the young.

If you design for the young, you exclude the old.”

Dr. O’Neill also cautioned against making decisions full of ageist assumptions about elderly people. Most older drivers, after all, perform well on the road. Many take the initiative when they realize the need to modify their driving habits. They deserve respect rather than coercive action to deprive them of the transportation that can severely cramp their lifestyle.

Though I myself do not feel entirely reconciled to the dominance of the automobile and judge alternative forms of transportation as eminently desirable, I also welcome technology being applied to make the driving experience considerably better for those committed to cars than it is now.

If the pros who took part in the AgeLab conference are a reliable sample of planners, it looks as if there is a whole lot that can be done.

Richard Griffin