Seniors are more likely to drive older cars that are less safe

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) is warning older drivers that their trusty "retirement" vehicles may not be so trusty after all, especially when it comes to protecting them in car crashes, from which they are far less likely to emerge unscathed than their younger counterparts.

"Healthier than ever before, Americans in their 70s and 80s are driving more miles and crashing less often than in past decades," IIHS said in its report. "But age-related fragility still makes older drivers less likely to survive crashes than other demographics. Drivers 75 and older are about 4 times as likely to die as middle-aged drivers when they’re involved in a side-impact crash and about 3 times as likely to die in a frontal crash, a previous IIHS study found."

It's not just the mileage on the driver that matters; age is a contributor on both sides of the equation. Drivers age 71 or older were significantly more likely to be driving vehicles that were at least 16 years old compared to drivers aged 35-54, and those vehicles were significantly less likely to achieve good ratings in the IIHS moderate overlap front and original side crash tests, IIHS said. What's worse, infrequent drivers (those who put fewer than 3,000 miles on their cars each year) are more likely to be involved in accidents to begin with.