Section 7 Features of common errors of elderly drivers
  The following are the results of an analysis conducted using Itarda's micro surveys on traffic accident case studies.

  1) Reasons why automobile drivers failed to see the other party
The reasons why drivers failed to see the other party are summarized in Fig. 24. Elderly drivers, especially those 75 and older frequently do not bother looking, assuming that there is nobody else nearby.

  2) Reasons for signal disregard
Automobile drivers involved in traffic accidents at traffic lights are categorized as (1) drivers that didn't disregard the light and (2) drivers that did disregard the light, forming a "signal disregard rate" (=100 × (2)/ ((1) + (2))%. The results are shown in Fig. 25.

Fig. 24 Reasons for failing to see the other party
  Those drivers that disregarded signals were further broken up according to the categories in the box to the right and as shown in Fig. 26

  As in Fig. 25, the older a person is, the higher their signal disregard rate becomes. Also, as shown in Fig. 26, the component ratio of "failure to see" becomes higher. In other words, for elderly drivers, signal disregard caused by failure to notice the traffic light is comparatively higher than younger age groups. There are, of course, few drivers that actually disregard a traffic light on purpose (only 8 in the 44 and younger groups and 1 in the 45-64 range).

  (3) Drivers that failed to see the traffic light "Careless disregard"
  (4) Drivers that deliberately disregarded the light, or disregarded it thinking that there would be no problem "Deliberate disregard"
  (5) Drivers that accelerated unreasonably through the intersection before the light changed, didn't recheck whether the light was still green, or assumed that the red light would turn green soon "Anticipation disregard"

Fig. 25 Signal adherence of automobile drivers

Fig. 26 Types of signal disregard for automobile drivers

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Institute for Traffic Accident Research and Data Analysis (ITARDA)