As you age, your body changes. While it may be an inconvenience in some everyday tasks, it can be a danger when driving.
Here are some of the areas where you may encounter problems as you age:
- Reaction time: As you drive, your brain is required to make constant calculations and react accordingly. Sometimes, a millisecond could be the difference between avoiding a collision and being in one. Our reactions slow with age.
- Hearing: Your ears provide information about the traffic around you. They can allow you to notice something you cannot see behind or to the side. Hearing deteriorates with age.
- Field of view: As you age, your field of vision reduces, making it easier to miss things happening to your side.
- Judging the speed of other vehicles: You get worse at this as you get older. It can make you more prone to accidents at junctions if you do not err on the side of caution.
- Changes in light: As you age, your pupils do not dilate and contract so fast. It will take longer for your eyes to adjust when entering a dark tunnel or passing from an unlit street to a lit one and could cause you to miss things.
- Glare: As you age, your eyes cloud over. Therefore, bright light from a set of headlights or the sun cannot enter your eyes as cleanly as it could when you were younger. Instead, it spreads out across your eye, causing glare.
- Color: Certain colors become harder to see, causing objects to merge into their background. It may prevent you from seeing pedestrians, other vehicles or obstructions.
If injured in a car crash, the other party may blame the collision on your age, even when they were at fault. Seek legal help to ensure you do not take the blame for someone else’s negligence.
