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UAB Study Links Senior Eye Tests, Road Safety

By Associated Press

Birmingham, AL – A UAB study shows highway traffic deaths for older drivers in Florida dropped 17 percent after the state passed a law requiring vision tests for people age 80 and older. In Georgia and Alabama, where such tests are not required, the death rates remain unchanged.

The university's lead researcher, Gerald McGwin Jr., called the reduction in deaths significant.

States like Alabama should consider special testing for older drivers, according to McGwin, but vision screening may not be the best option.

"I think that screening laws for older adults are things that every state should look at," McGwin told The Birmingham News. "What remains a question is what those screening tests should look like."

Nine states plus the District of Columbia require vision tests for older drivers; two states plus D.C. make elderly drivers take a road test, according to the study.

The study looked at fatality rates from 2001 to 2006. In the three years before the law was passed in 2004, Florida had 14.91 motor vehicle deaths per 100,000 a year overall and 14.88 for drivers or riders 80 and older.

In the three years after the law was passed, the rates increased slightly for all ages, to 15.21 per 100,000, but dropped to 12.34 percent for senior citizens.

To make sure elderly drivers in the Southeast weren't becoming safer in general, the researchers also looked at fatality rates in Alabama and Georgia.

Although there are some dramatic statistical fluctuations from year to year for instance, Alabama saw the rate drop from 21.39 deaths per 100,000 in 2001 to 15.05 the following year the rates remained generally flat for older drivers.

Legislation to require vision tests for older drivers has never been proposed in Alabama, said state Rep. Jim McClendon, R-Springville, who heads the state highway safety committee, and he does not foresee such legislation.

McClendon, a retired optometrist, was on a legislative study group in 2003 that looked in depth at issues among older drivers.

"We learned that older drivers are risk avoiders. One thing will happen with older drivers: their accidents are low speed, and they tend to get hit rather than hit something," McClendon said.

McClendon called the UAB study significant, but said he and other legislators felt resistance from constituents when they were studying older drivers. "Older folks vote," he said.

There are 166,467 people 80 and older with current driver licenses in Alabama, representing about 4.5 percent of the state's licensed drivers, according to the Alabama Department of Public Safety.

"We know not all of them drive," said Martha Earnhardt, a Public Safety spokeswoman. "They are simply using their driver license as a form of identification."

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