Children are safer in auto accidents when a grandparent is driving instead of a parent despite worries about diminished driving skills with age, research shows.

A study published in Pediatrics found the odds of a child being injured in an auto accident were 50 percent less when a grandparent was driving, HealthDay reported.

"More of the baby boomers are coming into grandparenthood no, and this important group of drivers of young children hadn't really been looked at critically," said study author Dr. Fred Henretig, an emergency room attending physician at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

"Something is going on. It looks like grandparents are doing something protective but our study can't answer what that is," said Henretig, a grandfather himself.

Lynn Purdy, program coordinator for the Child Passenger Safety Program at La Rabida Children's Hospital in Chicago, said she wasn't sure why grandparents' driving might prove safer in a crash but suspected they might drive a little slower.

Henretig said one area of concern was grandparents' knowledge of use of child restraints.

"Grandparents were a little bit less up-to-date on child restraints but we discovered that the injury rate was lower in grandparent driver crashes," he said.

"Parents should feel that grandparents aren't necessarily more dangerous behind the wheel but grandparents do need to be carefully shown how to use the child safety restraint equipment," Henretig said. 

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