[Driving and aging].

The number of older people who continue to drive is constantly increasing. However, whether older people have more traffic accidents than other age groups is unclear. This age group has certain risk factors due to decreased motor, sensory and cognitive functions and also has greater frailty and vulnerability to injury. However, older drivers are aware of their heightened crash risk and employ certain compensatory actions, avoiding traveling under threatening conditions (dense traffic, bad weather or night driving), traveling by well-known routes and driving carefully. In view of these apparent contradictions, the present study attempts to discern the real crash risk and the driving and crash patterns characteristic of this population, which is continually increasing in industrialized countries.