Assessment of computer-based training packages to improve the safety of older people’s driver behaviour

Examination of police records in Wales (STATS19 database) suggests older drivers are over represented in collisions turning across traffic and those involving failure to look properly, failure to judge the other vehicle or person’s path and performing a poor manoeuvre. A convened expert group suggests this is due to changes in attention, cognitive overload, processing speed, perceptual speed, working memory, task switching and eyesight associated with ageing. Training using computer-based packages can improve these cognitive and physiological issues associated with age. Performance on Useful Field of View (UFoV), Delayed Recall, Maze test and Dual N task computer tasks have all been shown to be related to number of crashes older drivers have. Of these only UFOV and Dual N task training improvements have been demonstrated to translate into improved driver behaviour, but overall more research is needed.