Despite driving at lower average speeds than younger and middle-aged drivers, and a greater likelihood of wearing seatbelts, older drivers were more likely to be injured or die in an accident than younger drivers.
According to the paper, published in the September 2005 Annual Proceedings of the Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine: "The archetypical elderly driver fatality involves a belted, sober driver pulling into the path of an oncoming vehicle during the day and dying several days after a collision of moderate severity. Pre-existing health issues are often related to the death. In contrast, the archetype for a 30-45 year-old driver fatality involves an unbelted, impaired driver losing control of his/her vehicle at night and dying during an extremely severe, single-vehicle crash."
