Posted on June 15, 2004 at 3:00 p.m.

BIRMINGHAM, AL — States with laws requiring in-person drivers license renewals have significantly fewer driver deaths among older adults, particularly among individuals who are 85 years or older, according to a recent study by public health researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). Details of the study, the first comprehensive investigation of the relationship between licensure requirements and elderly driver fatalities, are published in the June 16 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

“States use a variety of measures to increase the stringency of the licensure process for elderly individuals, such as requiring in-person renewals, vision tests, road tests and shorter renewal periods,” said David Grabowski, Ph.D., UAB assistant professor of public health and lead investigator of the study. “Interestingly, we found in-person renewals was the only one that significantly lowered driver fatalities among older drivers.”

Since 1980, motor vehicle fatality rates among older drivers — particularly those age 85 years or older — have been on the rise. Today, elderly individuals account for more fatal crashes per mile driven than any other group except teenage males. “The aging of the U.S. population over the next 25 years makes these statistics particularly distressing,” said Michael Morrisey, Ph.D., UAB professor of public health and co-investigator of the study.

The study reviewed vehicle fatality information reported from 1990 through 2000 in the Fatality Analysis Reporting System, collected by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Information on states’ motor vehicle laws and dates of enactment were gathered from various sources.

During the 11-year study period, there were a total of 4,605 driver fatalities among individuals aged 85 or older. “After controlling for factors such as state speed limit laws, seatbelt laws, and drinking and driving laws that may affect driver safety, we found states with in-person license renewal laws had a 17 percent lower driver fatality rate among drivers in this age group than states with no such laws,” Grabowski said.

Although it’s not certain how this law works to reduce fatalities, researchers cite two possibilities. “First, in-person renewals provide an opportunity for license inspectors to refuse to grant licenses to obviously impaired divers or to refer them for medical evaluation prior to receiving a new license,” Morrisey said. “Second, potentially unsafe drivers may be less likely to reapply for a license when facing in-person renewal.”

The study was supported by a grant from the University Transportation Center for Alabama and a grant awarded to UAB’s Injury Control Research Center by the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, an agency of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Christine Campbell, a graduate student with the School of Public Health at UAB and a research associate with UAB’s Lister Hill Center for Public Health Policy, collaborated on the study. Morrisey is center director and a scholar of the Lister Hill Center. Grabowski is a Lister Hill scholar. The endowed center, located in the School of Public Health at UAB, serves to promote and facilitate public health policy research, to disseminate the findings of that research beyond the usual academic channels and to sponsor the school’s health policy fellowship program.