In order to understand more about the role of impaired driving in road accidents the Global Road Safety Partnership (GRSP), with the financial support of the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) recently awarded the Transport Research Laboratory (TRL) a research grant to conduct a small ‘scoping study’ on impaired driving – with particular reference to developing countries. The impairment of normal driver behaviour is generally regarded as ‘a reduced ability to perform adequately the various elements of the driving task’. The cause of driver impairment (or resulting dangerous and erratic behaviour) may be the result of a number of factors such as alcohol consumption, drug ingestion, injury, infirmity, fatigue, the natural ageing process; or a combination of these factors. The focus of this study is on driver impairment caused by alcohol, illegal and medicinal drugs and fatigue, as these impairment factors were thought to be most relevant with regard to the problem of improving road safety in developing countries. This study aims to review existing knowledge about impaired driving – with special reference to developing countries. It was decided to invite a small number of ‘local’ specialists to conduct a series of regional reviews that covered a large proportion of developing countries around the world. It was anticipated that this approach would provide more valuable in-depth (and sometimes unpublished) information about a significant number of countries rather than having a strategy that might provide limited and unreliable information about all countries. (Author/publisher)
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