Accidents caused by older drivers’ pedal error still rampant

Asahi
October 16, 2025

An elderly individual was driving this minicar, seen here on Sept. 22, 2021, when it crashed into a building in Matsudo, Chiba Prefecture. This photo is not directly associated with this article. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

With the continued increase of elderly drivers involved in motor-vehicle accidents, the chief director of the Japanese Society of Safe Driving and Medical Conditions has tips for safer driving.

Shu Watanabe pointed out older drivers should set rules and conditions that make unexpected circumstances unlikely, such as by driving, for example, only on clear days, within three kilometers of their homes or only along roads with unobstructed views.

“An age-related decline in attentiveness is a physiological process that cannot be helped,” said Watanabe, who is an expert in rehabilitation medicine and a special adviser to Toda Medical Care Group. “It is important to make up for the decline in your abilities by making sure that you don’t have to drive under stress.”

PREVENTIVE MEASURES NEEDED

Traffic accidents caused by automobile drivers, many of them elderly, who mistakenly press the gas pedal instead of the brakes, continue occurring.

Officials of the Institute for Traffic Accident Research and Data Analysis (ITARDA), a Tokyo-based body, said that pedal error resulted in 2,853 accidents and 74 deaths in 2024.

ITARDA officials said the number of accidents caused by pedal error is on the decline as a whole. The annual count for 2024 is only half of the levels of 2015, which saw 5,830 accidents of the sort and 60 deaths.

However, elderly citizens aged 65 or older, in the meantime, account for a growing portion of the “first parties” to those accidents, who are the most at fault. The corresponding ratio rose from slightly over 30 percent to slightly more than 50 percent during the same period.

Analysis of accident site types based on data from the period from 2012 through 2016 showed that many of the accidents involving elderly drivers occurred outside of roadways, such as in store parking lots and pay parking lots.

Many were found to have occurred after drivers started up their vehicles or while driving straight.

“When you are in a parking lot, you are doing multiple tasks simultaneously,” said Masahito Hitosugi, a professor of social medicine with Shiga University of Medical Science. “For example, you have to look around and adjust your speed as you check out unoccupied spaces, other vehicles, walkers and obstacles.”

Hitosugi, who is also president of the Japanese Council of Traffic Science, explained: “The ability for doing multiple tasks in a similar manner declines with age.”

Aging also reduces leg muscular strength and hip joint mobility.

That could result in a situation whereby drivers have turned their bodies to the right while looking around and now have their foot on the gas pedal. When the drivers then step on what they believe to be the brake pedal, they are, in fact, stepping on the gas pedal, Hitosugi said.

“Unlike for young people, it is not easy for elderly individuals to take prompt reactions, such as releasing the pedal immediately,” Hitosugi added. “The important thing is to know the limits of your own abilities.”

Hitosugi proposed several safety measures, such as drivers keeping their heels on the floor in front of the brakes; using, when they are in a parking lot or elsewhere, the creep phenomenon of an automatic transmission that moves the vehicle forward slowly; and doing physical exercises to prevent reduction in muscle strength and mobility.

BLOOD FLOW DECREASES IN BRAIN

Watanabe said that driving not only involves doing multiple tasks but also requires the ability, among other things, to extract, and concentrate on, only a single piece of information out of many and to switch attention to other information.

A driver's brain works actively and blood flow increases there, while driving. The flow of blood in the brain, however, declines with age, which reduces the ability, in particular, to do multiple tasks at the same time, said Watanabe.

The brain knows that a driver should step on the brakes when seeing a red light or sensing danger.

Due to a decline in the ability for doing so and for other reasons, however, elderly people may have difficulty releasing the gas pedal and shifting their foot onto the brake pedal in an instant, so they may mistakenly press the gas pedal again, and thereby pick up speed.

This may cause them to panic and result in an accident, for this and other reasons, Watanabe said.

Abilities, muscle strength and other qualities decline differently in different individuals.

Tests for cognitive disorder, various forms of training and other content that are offered for free on the Japan Automobile Federation’s “general support website for aged drivers” (in Japanese only) could be useful for elderly drivers in reassessing their abilities.

VOLUNTARY RETURN OF DRIVER’S LICENSES

The number of driver’s license holders is on the decrease, but the number of elderly drivers is growing on the contrary.

National Police Agency figures show there were 7,897,762 drivers aged 75 or older as of the end of last year, up 1.8-fold from 10 years earlier and accounting for 10 percent of all driver’s license holders.

Many fatal accidents have been caused by drivers aged 75 or older. The number of similar accidents rose for four consecutive years to 410 last year.

There were 176 accidents of the kind during the first six months of this year, accounting for nearly 20 percent of all fatal accidents.

In March, a minitruck driven by a 78-year-old man crashed into a line of elementary school students in Hamamatsu, Shizuoka Prefecture, killing and injuring four of them.

In 2019, an 87-year-old man mistakenly stepped on the accelerator instead of the brakes in Tokyo’s Ikebukuro district and killed a mother and her daughter who were walking across a pedestrian crossing.

Amid the succession of accidents caused by aged drivers, many elderly individuals are surrendering their driver’s licenses voluntarily.

In 2019, the year of the fatal Ikebukuro accident, those aged 75 or older turned in 350,428 driver’s licenses, up nearly 60,000 from the previous year.

But the annual count is on a declining trend in recent years and dropped to only 264,916 last year.

LICENSE-FREE VEHICLE MODEL

The government is stepping up measures to cope with the problem.

In 2021, it obligated domestically produced vehicles of new models to be equipped with an automatic braking system.

In 2022, a driving skills test was introduced for those aged 75 or older with a history of certain violations who are renewing their driver’s licenses.

Automakers and auto parts makers are developing devices for acceleration control for pedal error (ACPE).

The government has decided to mandate that automatic transmissions in new cars be equipped with ACPE from September 2028 (from September 2029 for imported cars).

Private-sector entities are working to develop new vehicle models that are envisaged for use by elderly riders.

Luup Inc., a Tokyo-based operator of sharing services for electric kick scooters and battery-assisted bicycles, said in August that it plans to introduce a new single-seat, three-wheeled vehicle model that falls in the category of a “specified small motorized bicycle."

The motorized bicycle can be ridden by those aged 16 or older and doesn't require having a driver’s license.

Elderly citizens who have surrendered their driver’s licenses will therefore be authorized to use vehicles of the model, Luup officials said.

(This article was written by Yoshihiro Sakai and Daichi Itakura.)

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