Review of Driving Self-regulation in Older Adults

With population aging, the proportion of older drivers increases year by year. Driving self-regulation is an active adjustment of driving behavior made by older drivers to compensate for the growing deficits in their physical and cognitive functions, which could effectively improve driving safety, extend driving life, and maintain independence. In this review, we introduced the definition and types of driving self-regulation in older adults, and summarized the influencing factors and the potential mechanisms of driving self-regulation. Additionally, we discussed the limitations of the existing research and suggested the directions of future research. The results show that older drivers modify or adjust their driving patterns mainly by reducing driving frequency and avoiding challenging driving situations. Self-regulatory behaviors can be classified into three distinct levels: strategic, tactical, and life-goal. Driving self-regulation is a complex process which is influenced by demographic characteristics (e.g., age, gender), health and functional status, and psychological factors (e.g., confidence, self-efficacy, awareness, and attitude). Furthermore, the mechanism of driving self-regulation could be explained as a dynamic process of decision-making, which includes variation in an individual's attitude towards driving, formation of behavior intention, and execution of self-regulatory behavior. Future research on self-regulation of older drivers should combine the naturalistic driving data, health and functioning data from medical records, and the self-reported data based on validated questionnaires. In addition, longitudinal research is required to gain a complete understanding of the developmental trends and variations in driving self-regulation over time, its mechanisms, and its role in reducing accidents and improving driving safety. © 2020, Editorial Department of China Journal of Highway and Transport. All right reserved.