Shifting from manual to automatic gear when growing old: good advice? Results from a driving simulator study

Older people may be advised to switch from manual to automatic gear shifting, because they may have difficulties with dividing their attention between gear shifting and other driving tasks such as perceiving other traffic participants. The question is whether older drivers show a better driving performance when using automatic gear shifting instead of manual gear shifting. Twenty young and twenty older drivers participated in a driving simulator study. Each participant drove both in the manual and the automatic gear conditions. Young drivers reported significantly higher risk taking behaviour in traffic than the older drivers. The older drivers experienced more collisions in the driving simulator than the young participants, but this was only true in the manual gear condition. Older participants swerved more than young participants in both gear conditions. Altogether, the driving performance of the older drivers was better in the automatic gear condition compared with the manual gear condition. This research supports the advice for older drivers to use automatic gear shifting.