5 Key Takeaways

• 1

  A cohort study found 81% of crashes involving older drivers were linked to impairing medication use after the incident.

• 2

  The analysis reviewed 154,096 crashes involving 121,846 older adults with a mean age of 75.2 years.

• 3

  In the 120 days before the crash, 80% of drivers used at least one potentially driver-impairing medication.

• 4

  Benzodiazepine and opioid use increased post-crash, with benzodiazepine use rising from 8.1% to 8.8%.

• 5

  77.6% of crashes involved drivers who continued using one or more potentially driver-impairing medications.