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People drive on Highway 134 (Ventura Freeway) at the end of the evening rush hour in Glendale, California on September 3, 2010, before the start of the three-day Labor Day holiday weekend. More than 57 million drivers over the age of 65 are expected to be on the road by 2030. (Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images)
Drivers over the age of 65 will constitute around 20 percent of the driving population by 2025, according to the Associated Press on Tuesday.
Currently, the rate of 65-and-older drivers sits at around 15 percent. As life expectancy rises and more elderly drivers are on the road, more safety rules will have to be enacted, the National Transportation Safety Board told AP.
“The real challenge for all of us, whether it’s for our parents or for us, is when do you reach that point [to stop driving],” the agency’s chair Deborah Hersman told Bloomberg News during a conference on aging drivers.
Looking further ahead, AP reported that the number of drivers 65-and-older will double from 30 million today to 57 million in 2030.
More aging drivers on the road could be risky as health problems like poor eyesight and dementia could be hazardous for other drivers, according to the Bloomberg report.
Many Americans do not move away from their suburban homes, and need to drive to get around.
"For many, our homes will not be just a place to age, it will also be house arrest," Joseph Coughlin, head of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's AgeLab, told AP.
