The Department of Environment in Northern Ireland has launched a survey in an attempt to identify how older people (60 years+) could be made safer on the roads.
The survey aims to investigate the main causes of, and factors contributing to, road collisions involving older people.
In 2010, 106 people aged 65 and above were killed or seriously injured on Northern Ireland’s roads, including 26 pedestrians.
Alex Attwood, environment minister, said: “These are chilling statistics. We know that older people are one of the most at risk groups on our roads and that they are particularly vulnerable when out walking.
"Improving their safety is a priority for my Department and a key part of Northern Ireland’s Road Safety Strategy to 2020, which recognises that older people will form an increasing proportion of the population here in the years ahead.”
Encouraging all road users to fill in the survey which is available online or can be posted out in hard copy format, the minister added: “I value the views of the whole community and would encourage everyone, not only older people, to take part in this important research. This is part of an ongoing project which will help us to better understand the issues involved and develop new ways to tackle them.”
Click here to complete the online survey will remain live until the end of February 2012.
Jo, I can assure you that local authority road safety teams around the country work with all ages and through all sorts of organisations to provide support to those groups who are most vulnerable and/or who are known to be most at risk from injury on our roads. You may not always hear about it but the work is certainly going on.
In my own authority – North Yorkshire – we have areas of our website specifically designed for older people, we run infromation events for them, offer refresher drives with specially trained ADIs and are currently planning our work for the next 5 years and beyond to address the needs of the growing proportion of older people in our county who will want and need to keep independently mobile for as long as they can. We work with numerous organisations e.g. AgeConcern and University of the Third Age (U3A) and health and social services in this work.
We are now coordinating some areas of work on a regional basis to achieve better economies and broader coverage with the reduced resources we all now have.
Honor Byford, North yorkshire
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Diverse Road Safety CIC have secured BIG lottery fnding to provide refresher driver training for older people in Knowsley, Mersyside. About time people started looking at other vulnerable user groups – not just young people.
Jo Webster, Liverpool
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