Car Insurance Florida
5 Counties Where Senior Citizens Cause the Most Car Accidents
Deterioration of the senses from aging is a prime cause of motor vehicle accidents. This natural decline amidst a very large population of seniors increases the risk for everyone on the road that an accident might occur. For your benefit, please evaluate the following list of American counties with the highest reported number of car accidents involving seniors, and consider precautions you might take to protect from the negative consequences of an accident.
Data is derived from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration from the year 2010, with automobile accidents involving persons 65 and older.
- Los Angeles County: This county has nearly 10,000,000 residents, making it more populous than 42 individual states, and easily the nation’s leader in automobile crashes involving senior citizens. Los Angeles has the highest per-capita car population in the world, which translates to very congested traffic and a great number of accidents. Los Angeles is famous for its glitz and glamour, but be careful that you don’t spend too much time in a car enveloped in smog and exhaust.
- Maricopa County: The fourth-largest U.S. county, outnumbering the population of 23 individual states, Maricopa County is home to more than half of Arizona’s residents. Maricopa County also has the distinction of including America’s oldest city — with a population exceeding 100,000, Scottsdale boasts a median age of 45.4 years. Nearly 20% of its more than 200,000 people are over the age of 65.
- Miami-Dade County: Miami-Dade is a major metropolitan area at the southern tip of Florida. The Gulf Stream ocean current runs north off the southern coast, generally keeping the area above 77 degrees in the winter and making this a prime retirement area for seniors. Occasionally, the Gulf Stream results in heavy monsoons or even hurricanes, in which case operating an automobile may pose a severe risk and should be avoided if possible.
- Broward County: Just north of Miami-Dade, Broward County offers its inhabitants the familiar Florida benefits of great weather at low cost. The county seat, Fort Lauderdale, is the fifth-oldest city with more than 100,000 inhabitants. If you can navigate the roads without incident, you will find that Fort Lauderdale — nicknamed “the Venice of America” for its canal system — offers countless opportunities to enjoy its surrounding waterways.
- Cook County: Cook County encompasses Chicago and a population of more than 5,000,000. Traffic is somewhat mitigated by a well-functioning mass transit system, yet Chicago is nevertheless a very densely populated area with significant automobile traffic contributing to its heightened rate of senior citizen crashes. Shop along the Magnificent Mile, take in a show at the Second City Theatre, catch a baseball game at iconic Wrigley Field and more; there is a veritable smorgasbord of activities in Chicago, commonly known as the “most American” of major U.S. cities.