As traffic accidents caused by drivers age 65 and older have surged, an analysis found that voluntary license surrender by older adults is effective in reducing crashes.
According to the report "Effectiveness analysis and development plan for the voluntary driver's license surrender support program for older drivers," recently published by the Seoul Institute on the 3rd, traffic accidents caused by older drivers in Seoul were 4,158 cases (9.9% of the total) in 2015, but increased to 7,275 cases (21.7%) in 2024.
With recent aging, the number of license holders age 65 and older nearly doubled from 490,000 in 2015 to 950,000 in 2024. In 2015, the age group that caused the most traffic accidents was people in their 50s (10,559 cases), but in 2024 it shifted to people in their 60s (7,633 cases).
The increase in traffic accidents caused by older adults is not solely due to a rise in older drivers from demographic changes. Older drivers, on average, caused more crashes, and their share of severe accidents with fatalities was also higher.
The accident rate, meaning the number of traffic accidents per license holder, was 0.77% for older adults in 2024, about 65% higher than 0.47% for non-older adults. The fatality rate, meaning the number of deaths per 100 traffic accidents, was 0.91 for older adults and 0.57 for non-older adults.
The institute also included an analysis of how effective the license surrender system was in reducing accidents. Since 2019, the Seoul Metropolitan Government has operated a policy to encourage older adults to voluntarily surrender their licenses, and a cumulative 122,135 people had returned their licenses by 2024.
A comparison of before and after the policy's implementation found that areas within Seoul with higher shares of older adults surrendering licenses had lower older-driver accident rates than other areas. When the surrender rate rose by 1 percentage point (P), the accident rate decreased by an average of 0.02142 percentage points. Applying this to the number of older license holders in 2024 (949,000) yields an effect of reducing a total of 203 accidents caused by older adults.
The institute said, "This means the license surrender system is not merely a welfare policy for older adults, but functions as a practical policy tool focused on preventing traffic accidents," and noted, "The surrender policy is assessed to have a clear quantitative effect in reducing traffic accidents involving older adults."