Older Commercial Drivers: Literature Review

This paper reports on a comprehensive literature review of the older driver and older commercial driver literature. The review included sources of data from private and government data bases, empirical research published in public journals, and existing commercial vehicle driving task analyses. The review uncovered key abilities which degrade with age, including: static visual acuity, dynamic visual acuity, contrast sensitivity, useful field of vision, field dependence, depth perception, glare sensitivity, night vision, audition, reaction time, multilimb coordination, control precision, decision-making, selective attention, and attention sharing. The review also sought to identify which of those abilities might effect the performance of critical commercial driving tasks. Although much investigation has been done of older person abilities, most of the studies have looked at persons in either medical or judicial systems. We found little data on driving degradation of older but healthy drivers.