Impact of Regional Characteristics on Traffic Safety by Aging Stage

Recently, many local governments have implemented various traffic safety policies for the elderly. This paper aims to analyze the impact of regional characteristics on traffic safety by aging stage. The main results are as follows. First, as the aging stage goes up, it is analyzed that the severity of traffic accidents are increasing while the number of traffic accidents are decreasing. In addition, the factors affecting the number and severity of traffic accidents are judged to not overlap, and are assessed to change as the aging stage goes up. Second, ten generalized linear regression models which are all statistically significant are developed. Third, regional characteristic indicators are estimated to have a significant impact on traffic accidents. Finally, the differentiated traffic safety policies are required for each aging stage. Increase of crosswalk right-side walking rate and management of traffic volume in ‘aging society’, increase of turn signal usage rate and expansion of general hospital beds in ‘aged society’, and enforcements of stop line conform and other violations in ‘super-aged society’ are evaluated to be vital to the policies.