Assessment of Driving-Related Skills for Older Drivers [Traffic Tech]
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Summary
This study evaluates the validity of the Assessment of Driving-Related Skills (ADReS), an office-based screening tool designed to help physicians determine the driving fitness of older adults. While behind-the-wheel testing remains the gold standard for assessing driver safety, it is resource-intensive and not routinely available in clinical settings. The ADReS, developed by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the American Medical Association, aims to provide a practical alternative by assessing visual, physical, motor, and cognitive functions. However, prior to this investigation, there was no systematic evidence linking ADReS performance to actual behind-the-wheel outcomes. The research sought to determine the sensitivity (ability to predict poor driving performance) and specificity (ability to avoid false positives) of the ADReS components to inform potential revisions to the screening protocol. The study recruited 127 participants aged 65 to 89 (mean age 74.7) from the Gainesville, Florida area. Participants completed office-based assessments including the ADReS tests and the Useful Field of View (UFOV) test, followed by a standardized one-hour behind-the-wheel road test administered by trained raters. The raters recorded driving errors and critical safety-related errors to determine pass or fail status. Researchers then compared the office-based screening results with the road test outcomes to evaluate how well the screens identified drivers who failed the practical test versus those who passed. The findings revealed that while many participants were recommended for intervention based on ADReS scoring, the predictive value varied significantly across different test components. Physical performance, specifically range-of-motion tests, showed strong correlation with driving outcomes; notably, six of the seven participants who failed to complete a rapid-pace walk in under 10 seconds also failed the behind-the-wheel test. Cognitive screens, such as the clock-drawing test, demonstrated high sensitivity but poor specificity, resulting in a high rate of false positives because the scoring cutoff was too strict. The UFOV test was associated with driving outcomes but was deemed impractical for widespread clinical use due to cost. Based on these results, the authors recommend modifying the ADReS to improve its efficiency and accuracy. Specifically, they suggest eliminating strength testing and reducing range-of-motion assessments to the rapid-pace walk. They also propose refining vision and cognition testing criteria to reduce unnecessary interventions. These modifications aim to streamline the screening process for physicians, ensuring that the tool more accurately distinguishes between drivers who require further assessment and those who are safe to continue driving, thereby supporting the upcoming revision of the Physician’s Guide to Assessing and Counseling Older Drivers.
Key finding
Among older drivers, the rapid-pace walk was a strong predictor of road-test failure, with 6 of 7 participants who could not complete it in under 10 seconds also failing the behind-the-wheel test, while the clock-drawing test was sensitive but not specific.
Methodology
field_study
Sample size: 127
Provenance
The full processing record for this entry. Every stage of this paper's journey through the pipeline is logged — what ran, with which tool and model, how many attempts it took, and when it last completed. Discovered via bulk_ingest_rosap on 2026-05-23 (7 acquisition events logged).
| Stage | Outcome | Tool | Model | Prompt | Attempts | Completed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| discover | success | rosap | — | — | 2 | 2026-05-23 |
| archive | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-05-23 |
| extract | success | cached | — | — | 2 | 2026-06-10 |
| clean | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-01 |
| chunk | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-01 |
| embed | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-02 |
| enrich | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-05-23 |
| promote | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-05-23 |
| summarize | success | llm | qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant | summ-v5 | 3 | 2026-06-10 |
| tag | success | vector_similarity | — | — | 19 | 2026-06-11 |
| verify | success | — | — | — | 3 | 2026-06-10 |
Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant on 2026-06-10; verification: verified.
Topics
Ranked by relevance to this paper. Hover a topic for its definition.
- fitness to drive assessment
- older driver retraining
- mci dementia driving
- cognitive impairment
- useful field of view
- cognitive capacity variation
Information type
What kind of knowledge this paper contributes, grouped by family — independent of topic (what it is about) and method (how it was studied).
- Methodological Resource: validation psychometrics, measurement protocol
- Theoretical Contribution: computational model