Excessive speed is often a factor in many car accidents, though admittedly rarely the only factor. However, speed limits on many roads and highways have generally done well to lower accident rates and thus fatality rates in motor vehicles over the decades. While the numbers are still pretty high because  there are still people who like to drive fast, we are grateful for speed limits or the numbers could certainly be much worse.

[Image courtesy of Matt Lemmon from Flickr via a Creative Commons license]Car accidents involving drivers age 65 and older spiked 16 percent in 2012 over the previous year, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is working to stem the tide.

Now, while we have gotten used to limits on speed, could there be limits on age if it exceeds a speed limit number?

While there is no full-fledged push to ban driving privileges for older drivers, there is statistical evidence that suggests that drivers who are 65 or older are getting in accidents more frequently of late, and that has gotten the attention of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

iI 2012, the most recent full-year data that is available, there were 35 million licensed drivers in the U.S. who were age 65 and older, and their accident incident rate rose by 16 percent over the previous year, resulting in more than 200,000 injuries. That result has been cause for the NHTSA to recently announce a five-year plan designed to focus on the older-driver demographic, looking to improve their safety and safety of others when older drivers are on the road.

While the agency is not suggesting any new regulations on older drivers, it is looking into analysis of crash causes among drivers and some of the underlying factors and how they apply to older drivers. The agency is looking to send out an updated version of its highway-safety guidelines for older drivers, conduct upgrades to its New Car Assessment Program to add a rating system for olde r drivers and passengers, and will be conducting research on technologies in vehicles like collision avoidance and inter-vehicle communication.

If you’d like to learn more about the new NHTSA older-driver initiative, check out this link.