08/17/2009 - 8:13am

Cognitive Skills and Left Turns: Senior drivers have asked why it is harder for them to make left turns

A study produced by the Center for Transportation Studies at the Texas Transportation Institute for the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, which examined data on crashes in Texas during the 1975-1999 period, found that the probability that an older driver will be involved in a left-turn crash increases with age.

According to U.S. department of transportation statistics for 1994 older adults were nine times more likely to be turning left when involved in an accident.

During left-turn maneuver the driver faces the challenge of deciding when it is safe to start the turn, while cars are approaching, sometimes from more than one direction. Main cognitive abilities involved in this operation are speed, distance and direction estimations. They, together with the general visual functions, become weaker with age.

Left turns definitely get harder as we get older. A study by the Center for Transportation Studies at the Texas Transportation Institute for the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, which examined data on crashes in Texas during the 1975-1999 period, found that the probability that an older driver will be involved in a left-turn crash increases with age.

According to U.S. Department of Transportation statistics for 1994, older adults were nine times more likely to be turning left when involved in an accident.

Why this happens is the interesting part. During a left-turn maneuver, a driver must use many different cognitive skills. A driver must decide when it is safe to start the turn, while cars are approaching, sometimes from more than one direction. The main cognitive abilities involved in this operation are speed, distance and direction estimations. They, together with the general visual functions and spatial processing, become weaker with age. The weaker the skills, the harder it is to carry out the appointed task. Since making a left turn is really a very cognitively complicated task, involving age-affected skills, making a left turn gets harder as we get older.

So what can be done?

Older drivers use a lot of avoidance techniques- driving only during the day; driving during off hours when traffic is lighter; avoiding a left turn by making three right turns to go around the block and go straight into the intersection.

But since making a left turn is linked so tightly to certain cognitive skills, improving the cognitive skills would then make left turns easier.