New research indicates that a person's neighborhood may play a large role in influencing decisions to commute by bike. The study, published recently in the Journal of Transport and Land Use, could give city planners new ideas about how to design neighborhoods, streets and bike paths with active commuting in mind, said Yuiin Park, lead author of the study.

The study was based on a survey of 1, 200 people who commuted to The Ohio State University. About 12.6 percent of those people classified themselves as bicyclists, and about 5.4 percent reported that a bicycle was their main choice of transportation to campus. People, who lived in high-density areas were more than twice as likely to commute by bike as people in medium-density areas and more than three times as likely to commute by bike as people in suburban areas.

Both bicyclists and non-bicyclists in the survey agreed that bicycling was environmentally friendly,created health benefits and would save money. It indicates that recognizing the benefits of bicycling is not enough to push non-bicyclists to start commuting on two wheels. However, most bicyclists surveyed said they would commute by bike more frequently if they had access to more bike' paths, bike-sharing opportunities and covered parking for their bikes. Non-bicyclists who lived in high-density neighborhoods appeared to be more concerned about safety-both from other vehicles and from crime-when traveling by bike than their friends who commute by bike.

Park finally said that the conditional willingness to ride a bicycle to commute gradually decreases from high-density neighborhoods to low-density, single-family neighborhoods. She also said that if campus, city and regional planners want to increase the percentage of people commuting by bike, they might want to target public investment in protected bike paths and bike parking near downtown and campus areas.

Highway safety experts have long been concerned about a possible increase of accidents and deaths as people in their 70s, 80s and beyond continued to drive. However, a recent study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety found that drivers age 70 and older were less likely to be involved in a car accident than those 35 to 54.

The study, published in June in The Journal of Safety Research, recorded a 43 percent drop in accidents among drivers 70 and older from 1997 to 2018. For middle-aged drivers, the decline in accidents was half that, 21 percent. Although seniors rarely drove as far as younger drivers did, older adults had better safety records per mile driven. In 2017, for the first time ever, drivers 70 and older had fewer crashes reported to the police than middle-aged drivers, the institute found.

The study’s authors credited two major factors for the improved safety record of older drivers: Seniors today are healthier than in decades past, and most are operating safer vehicle. To that, I would add, they’re helped by significant safety improvements in roadway design. For example, when stop signs or traffic lights were replaced by roundabouts at crossroads, overall crashes dropped 37 percent, injury crashes by 75 percent, and deaths by 90 percent.

Still, there’s no question that an aging mind and body can compromise driving safety. Flexibility and reaction time necessarily decline as-we get-older. Age-related health challenges that can worsen driving ability include arthritis (关节炎), hearing loss and dementia (痴呆). The most important lesson for older drivers is to acknowledge (承认) such changes and know how to make up for them if possible.

Brenda Vrkljan, a specialist at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, is doing what she can to help older adults continue to drive safely by monitoring where and when they drive and how they behave behind the wheel.

A program called Candrivee which Dr Vrkljan helped establish, is tracking the driving patterns of older adults to assess what changes might improve safety. She and colleagues are placing cameras in aging drivers’ cars to record their unsafe missteps, like failing to check mirrors before changing lanes or not stopping soon enough. Afterward, the drivers can view the video, offering them an opportunity to bear witness to their limitations.