The prevalence of medicines in the driving population and their role in traffic accidents is mostly unknown in the European countries. Larger roadside studies focusing on medicines with detrimental effects on road traffic safety should be organised, so results could be compared to the corresponding compounds detected in samples from accident drivers. In order to perform such studies, equipment with necessary sensitivity for detection of the most relevant compounds in appropriate biological media (e.g. saliva or sweat) is highly needed. Further studies on blood/saliva (or sweat) concentration ratios are therefore recommended. Collaboration studies with participation from different countries are thus important in order to obtain sufficient data for the calculation of reliable risk factors. Standard protocols covering biological medium to be used for analyses, compounds covered by the analytical program and their cut-off limits are thus recommended. Sub-division by groups of drivers responsible for the accidents (responsibility analysis) gives the most valuable data for accident risk calculations. Special focus must be paid to accident-involved drivers with more than one compound detected in their blood samples, or to those with blood drug concentrations reflecting doses higher than normally recommended for therapeutic use. Organisation of a common European database covering the prevalence of alcohol, illegal drugs and medicines among injured and fatal accident drivers provided by the different countries would be highly valuable. Routines should be considered for the exchange of information from accident studies to uncover "new" medicines that may have detrimental effects on traffic safety. (Author/publisher) For the covering abstract of the conference see ITRD Abstract No. E201067.
Abstract