Using body fluid samples obtained from pathologists throughout England and Wales during 1984-1986, analyses have been carried out to establish the presence of medical drugs and drugs of abuse in road accident fatalities. This report summarises results obtained from the first 800 cases. These indicate that: 1) the overall incidence of fatalities involving all categories of road user who had taken drugs likely to affect the central nervous system (CNS) was 7.5 per cent. Although cannabis was present in approximately a third of such cases, with the exception of diazepam (1.1 per cent) and its metabolite nordiazepam (0.4 per cent), no single medical drug was recorded at arate greater than about one half per cent. For car drivers and motorcycle riders, the overall incidences of cns active drugs were 7.3 and 7.4 per cent; 2) drugs of abuse, notably cannabis, were most common among young and middle aged male drivers and motorcycle riders; in 22 per cent of occasions they were used in combination with alcohol; 3) the greatest incidence of medical cns active drugs among fatalities was found to occur for road users over sixty years of age, the rate for males being marginally greater than for females; 4) very few fatalities involved the use of cns active drugs by female drivers or riders, only one being over sixty years of age.
Abstract