Asking the Right Question: Understanding the Travel Needs of Older Women Who Do Not Drive

Most of those 65 and older are and will be women who have different travel patterns and resources to cope with mobility losses as they age. Older women make up the overwhelming percentage of all nondrivers, and a high proportion have limited incomes and household support with which to address their travel needs. Unpublished data from the 1995 Nationwide Personal Transportation Survey were analyzed to evaluate the differential impact of not having a license on otherwise comparable men and women. Women who do not drive face greater mobility problems than comparable men, and the mobility problems of older women are of two types: never having had the ability to drive and loss of the ability to drive. Current patterns suggest that mobility losses due to either type of nondriving will not fall evenly on men and women or among different groups of men and women.