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This pilot study established interrater reliability among a nurse, an occupational therapist, and a physician, administering the Assessment of Driving-related Skills (ADReS). Participants included 14 older adults between 65 and 80 years old. Results showed 82% agreement between clinicians across visual, motor, and cognitive scores of the ADReS. Interventions and clinicians' comments were compared with recommended guidelines in the ADReS. Good interrater reliability among 3 different health professions suggests that this screening tool could be appropriately used by nonphysicians, including nurses and occupational therapists. Increasing the number of professionals who administer the ADReS could increase prompt intervention for older adults who require full assessment and possibly compensatory strategies, training, or adaptive devices to enable or prolong safe driving. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) proposed highway design guidelines to increase safe driving ability of older drivers, but little empirical evidence exists to support these guidelines. Using kinematics measures from an instrumented vehicle and on-road evaluations, the authors examined the safety effects of improved versus unimproved intersections in older (65-85) and younger (25-45) drivers. Kinematics measures showed that 4 maneuvers had significantly poorer lateral stability for the unimproved conditions, and significantly greater speed for the improved conditions. Behavioral measures showed that drivers had significantly fewer errors for 2 improved left-turn maneuvers, and fewer total errors overall, with older drivers having a higher mean number of errors. These findings suggested that the FHWA guidelines for safe road conditions result in safer driving by older and younger adults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]