With traffic accidents involving people over 65 on the rise, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has rolled out a new five-year traffic safety plan for older drivers and passengers.
In 2012, 5,560 people over the age of 65 died, and 214,000 were injured in motor vehicle crashes, according to NHTSA’s latest issue of Safety in Numbers. Those figures represent a 3 percent increase in the number of fatalities and a 16 percent increase in the number of injuries from the previous year. The data also show that older adults are at greater risk of dying or sustaining serious injuries, even in low-severity crashes.