What is ‘Driving Health’?

Though we often take it for granted, driving a car is the most demanding — and the most risky — thing we do in our everyday lives. And, in our society today, driving is more of a necessity than ever. Even our very oldest citizens rely on private automobiles well over 90 percent of the time to meet their essential mobility needs and to remain active in their communities. If we couldn’t drive, our quality of life would suffer immeasurably.

To maintain the independence that a car provides, without extra risk to ourselves and others, depends upon maintaining our ‘driving health.’ A person with good ‘driving health’ retains all of the critical visual, mental, and physical abilities needed to drive safely. These are typically referred to as ‘functional abilities’ by medical and health care professionals.

Monitoring changes over time in someone’s functional abilities can help him or her manage the risk of a motor vehicle-related crash or injury. Declines in our safe driving abilities may come about because of disease or trauma, but are also a normal part of aging. People who suffer a decline in ‘driving health’ will not be as capable of detecting, anticipating, or reacting to safety threats when behind the wheel.

Important information about this subject is available from the American Medical Association (AMA), the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA), and the Association for Driver Rehabilitation Specialists (ADED). You may click on the names of these organizations to go directly to the relevant links.