Driving Safety For The Elderly

The senior citizens of today have grown alongside their cars.  They came of age in the 1940s and 1950s as the automobile culture really started to explode.  The automobile defined many aspects of their lives - where they chose to live, how they chose to vacation, where  they chose to work.  
The number of senior drivers is ever-increasing within the US. In the year 2008, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported that there was thirty two million drivers – or fifteen percent of all licensed drivers – that were over the age of 65.

However, the automobile of today defines these seniors’ safety on the road. A lot of seniors on the road today are driving older vehicles, and others still are in vehicles that aren't fully adjusted to their height and driving skills.

According to NHTSA, the dangers to American drivers is very real.  In the year 2009, one hundred eighty-seven thousand seniors were hurt in car accidents, accounting for eight percent of all people that are injured in traffic collisions throughout the year. These individuals made up sixteen percent of traffic fatalities.  The majority of all traffic fatalities with older drivers in 2009 took place in the daytime (81 percent), on weekdays (71 percent), and involved other vehicles (69 percent).

With just a few safety measures and frequent vehicle maintenance checks to optimize visibility, senior drivers can keep independent and substantially improve their safety on the road.  We're proud to give you these suggestions for keeping seniors secure while traveling.

Conduct a Safety Fit Check on the Car:  In many cases, a senior's car is no longer a good fit for them.  The seat could be too low or the pedals too far to comfortably reach or mirrors may no longer be adjusted properly for good vision.  These factors can contribute to a potentially disastrous accident.  Steve's CARSTAR Auto Body Repair can give you a good evaluation.  To help keep the senior in your life safe, they provide pedal extensions, booster seats, mirror extension, magnifiers and running boards.

If you are hunting for a new or used car for a senior, try to find options like high or extra-wide doors, adjustable foot pedals, large interior door handles, over-sized knobs with clearly visible labels, support handles to help with entry and exit, big or adjustable-size text for dashboard gauges, seat adjustment systems that can move the seat in any direction - particularly raising it up so the driver’s line of sight is 3” over the adjusted steering wheel and dashboard-mounted ignition as opposed to steering column-mounted ignition, as your specific needs may direct.

Check the Vehicle's Visibility:  It isn't just important for the driver to see out of the car, it’s important for them to see the road completely and for other cars to be able to see them.   Many seniors will travel in vehicles that are older, and these headlamps substantially lose lighting capability and may become hazed over time.  The simple solution, a 3M Lens Renewal Kit, enables users to restore headlights to pristine clarity in under an hour with nothing more than a household drill or have it done professionally at Stock Auto Body CARSTAR in Arnold, MO. Put in new headlight bulbs, change out the wiper blades and give the interior and exterior glass a thorough cleaning to generally improve visibility.

Assess the Driver: It goes without saying that talking with seniors about their driving isn't an easy thing to do, but this is fundamentally important.  Fortunately, qualified assessments are available in every state through the Association for Driver Rehabilitation Specialists (ADED) and the American Occupational Therapy Association, Inc. (AOTA).  The driver ought to expect a total evaluation, including vision screening, muscle strength, flexibility, range of motion, coordination, reaction time, judgment and decision-making abilities.

Have a Safe Travel Plan:  Elderly drivers are generally more safe on routes that do not require recurring lane changes or heavy traffic situations.  Help the senior in your life to schedule trips for times when traffic is not so heavy, and map out routes to regularly visited locations that include side streets and intersections that aren't so busy.  Also identify landmarks that help them stay oriented on their trip.

Prepare For An Accident:  In case of an accident, make provision with the senior through an accident kit with their insurance information, emergency contact list, names of their primary physician, notepad and disposable camera.  They can also give a call to 1-800-CARSTAR for our 24/7 assistance hotline where we can coordinate the towing, rental car and contact the insurance company. For the trunk, have an emergency kit packed including blanket, gloves, hat, water, granola bars, flashlight and extra batteries, extra cell phone battery, flares, compass, scissors, rope, wooden matches in waterproof container and first aid kit.

With even a small amount of preparation and smart maintenance, seniors can stay safe on the road well into their golden years. If you've got senior parents, family members, friends or neighbors, take just a few short minutes to do a safety check on their vehicle and help them prepare in case an accident does take place.  It can make a vital difference for them when next they hit the road.

Car Seat Safety And Your Vehicle

A car crash is a hectic experience, but there's often an aspect that becomes ignored – the harm to the child safety seat and associated harm to that child. Twenty-five thousand children are wounded in car crashes each and every year, so the issue is significant.

While the child safety seat is designed to defend little ones from newborns to around eight years of age, it can't do what it claims to do if it's poorly set up or a poor fit for the rider, or re-used after a collision or intensive wear.

Nationwide, the misuse rate for child safety seats is over eighty percent and all the way to ninety-five percent in some areas. And with child safety seats set up in a projected one in ten automobiles on the highway, the possibility of one being in a major accident is a concern. Child safety seats and booster seats definitely protect lives – when set up and utilized the right way.

CARSTAR, the nation’s biggest family of auto body repair experts, and their franchise owners in Steve's CARSTAR Auto Body Repair in Arnold, MO work together with numerous safety organizations to help teach parents about the proper installation and use of child safety seats, and to make certain child car seats are replaced after accidents to ensure the safety of the child.

Accidents have a toll on safety seats, but replacement need is not always clear. Insurance firm and vehicle repair standards often determine what parts and systems need to be changed under what conditions, and at what cost. That isn't true for child safety seats. In many instances, the child seat needs to be replaced after an accident, even though harm to the child safety seat might not be apparent, as outlined by NHTSA guidelines.  But the criteria for replacement and the compensation differ greatly – from not being included to only a stipend that covers an entry level child safety seat.

Whenever any sort of accident takes place, the physics of the accident put extreme stress on the frame, harness and framework of the child safety seat.  This could result in the child safety seat to not perform to standards in future collisions and significantly diminish the actual quantity of defense supplied.  But identifying the influence on the child safety seat is tough considering the range of providers and versions on the market.

That is the reason why Steve's CARSTAR Auto Body Repair is stepping in to make sure that parents think about the child safety seat whenever they have their automobile repaired.  It is essential to check out the child safety seat for any affected parts, damaged frame or structure, busted hinges or inflated airbags.  These are signs that the child seat in question needs to be replaced.

NHTSA advises that the overall performance of the child safety seat be evaluated following any crash and possibly replaced in every crash that deploys the air bags, compresses the front bumper, rear bumper or side panels or causes injury to the riders.

Installation, Proper Fitting is Essential

The most important factors in child safety seat performance include installation and appropriate fit.  Any mother or father can let you know that set up can often be difficult and that trying to keep up with an ever growing child is difficult.  In reality, some 4 of 5 child safety seats are hooked up incorrectly.

It is vital to have your child safety seat examined for correct installation at a child safety seat inspection station or event. The important thing here is guaranteeing the seat is properly installed so it'll work properly in the case of a crash. Make sure to pay attention throughout the installation procedure. Be a proactive participant in the set up. Do not just let the technician do all of the work.  It is extremely important for whoever owns the car or truck to know how to set up the seat properly.

In times past, local law enforcement and fire departments have performed child safety seat checks, but inevitable budget cuts across the nation have gotten rid of a lot of these.  To help occupy that gap, this CARSTAR location is stepping up to certify our store's associates on child safety seat installation and holding clinics at their local store.

At Steve's CARSTAR Auto Body Repair in Arnold, Missouri, they're performing monthly child safety seat installation inspections at their location. These draw countless parents to the store for the free service.

Illuminating The Reasons To Get Your Headlights Checked

There is an unseen safety issue on every American road that hardly ever comes to light:  darkened headlight bulbs and hazy headlight lenses, which can lead to reduced visibility. With Daylight Savings Time and all of the wintery, snowy weather, the grave importance of clear nighttime visibility increases.


As time passes, dim and hazy headlight lenses cause a definite reduction in overall visibility. Headlights can lose their effectiveness as a result of dirt, scratches, grime and other such contaminates.

A primary culprit when it comes to dim headlights is the headlight lens. Countless cars on the road right now have plastic lenses. Regrettably, lenses of this type generally don’t hold up well to weather and time; they can easily become hazed and yellowed, lowering the overall light output from the headlamp. The problem goes up with the age of the lens, and with the typical age of cars on the road being at about ten years old, the problem is certainly growing. Futhermore, additional exposure to sun or salt can cause plastic headlight lenses to be hazy.  This is a very common issue on both domestic and foreign cars, and is not simply for less-expensive vehicles. It’s not uncommon for even luxury cars to have headlight lenses that are hazy as well as the more cost-effective vehicles.

Although replacing headlamps and windshield wiper blades are generally a fairly inexpensive repair, the solution for hazed headlights lenses isn't as simple as you might think.  Replacing your headlight lenses can cost as much as $1,500.

Steve's CARSTAR Auto Body Repair in Arnold, MO can restore headlights to their like-new condition in order to maximize night vision and increase clarity when driving. This CARSTAR location can offer you this affordable and quick service to restore the lens surface to greatly improve their light output and visibility on the St. Louis area roads that you drive on the most, not to mention the appearance of their vehicle.

We would like to encourage any car owner that is concerned about their winter weather driving visibility to perform a vehicle visibility safety check before hitting the roads and dealing with all of the darkness and winter weather.

Vehicle Visibility Safety Checklist

Check your windshield wipers -- Change them at least once per year if you notice them streaking

Examine your headlights' brightness – Headlight bulbs naturally dim over time. Park on a fairly level surface facing five feet from a wall and check the display of light.  The circles of light need to be a bright or soft white color, not  a yellow or dim color, and the circles should be even and aligned straight forward on the wall.

Change the bulbs - A good-quality bulb will be much brighter and last quite a bit longer.  Replace both bulbs on the trip, whether or not it seems that they both actually need it.

Check your headlight lens - If you notice any sort of cloudy, milky surface and fail to see the bulb through all of the plastic, you have damage capable of limiting your visibility on the highway.

Restore your headlights – Steve's CARSTAR Auto Body Repair offers you a service to remove that hazy layer of damage that can build up and polish your lenses back to like-new condition.

Check your mirrors - For optimum visibility, be sure that all of your mirrors are in good working condition without cracks.  Damaged mirrors can be replaced without significant cost by stopping by a local salvage yard.

Check your tail lights, brake lights, backup lights and tag illumination lights – Back your vehicle in the direction of a wall and illuminate your rear lights while you watch in your rearview mirror. You can replace these without much effort – and potentially save yourself a traffic ticket.