Rapid deceleration events (RDEs) are employed as an index in the driving as assessment of older drivers using naturalistic driving data. The differences between simple RDE (SRDE) and trigger RDE (TRDE) have been analyzed using naturalistic driving data and human characteristics of 84 drivers aged between 50 and 83. The SRDEs and TRDEs were then extracted from the driving data. In this study, SRDEs were extracted based on only acceleration data, while TRDEs were extracted in consideration of acceleration and situations regarded as triggers for braking behavior. The results of the negative binomial and mixed Poisson regression analyses demonstrated that SRDEs up to a detection threshold of 0.5 g can predict the occurrence of TRDEs. However, the relevant factors differed between the two RDEs for the 0.5 and 0.7 g detection thresholds. The study revealed that SRDEs exhibited an increase with age, whereas this trend was not observed for TRDEs. The constructed model suggests that TRDE indices are not simply a scaled-down SRDE. In driving assessments of older drivers based on naturalistic driving, RDEs should be applied in accordance with the specific usage of the assessment and the available information to detect the events.