Video Games Help Elderly Drivers

Oct. 27, 2008— -- It's a jungle on the road out there, and like so many people, Steve Kramer, a 57-year-old financial adviser from Langhorne, Pa., worries how he'll keep up behind the wheel as he gets older.

Kramer and his wife, Donna, agreed to take part in an experiment: playing a computer game. The software, made by Posit Science, is called an "exercise for the brain."

"At first I thought, 'ha-ha, just another game.' But as you got into it, it got difficult and then more difficult, and it became challenging to where you wanted to do it," Mr. Kramer said.

Allstate Insurance is now offering the game as a free trial to 100,000 Pennsylvania customers whose accident rates will be compared with a group of drivers not playing the games to see if it helps their reflexes and peripheral vision.(Click here to demo the software online).

"There are a group of people, [ages] 50 to 75, that could benefit from some brain exercise, improve their driving skills, improve their attention, improve their visual skills," said John Kane, regional distribution leader at Allstate Insurance Co.

If it proves successful, the company hopes to expand its pilot program into other states, or even lower premiums for frequent players.

"This might be an opportunity where we can offer a discount to someone based on the fact that they have taken the program and improved their driving skills," Kane said.

But how does a video game improve driving?

The games themselves seem simple. In one, you watch fish, some of which have red rubies hidden inside them, and are asked to click on the right ones after they stop swimming.

That sounds like a piece of cake, but with swarms of fish swimming around your screen, it's difficult to keep track.

"When you think you've mastered a task, it kicks it up a notch and you're almost back to square one, trying to achieve the objective," said Robert Lovelace, an Allstate customer who enrolled in the pilot program. He says he ultimately found the program's skill level challenging.

"This software pointed out very quickly, for instance, that my vision in the lower left quadrant is not nearly as strong as in the upper right quadrant. I never realized that until I tried this."