According to German legislation a driver himself has to ensure that he or she is of good physical and mental condition and has not violated traffic legislation severely or repeatedly. Personal requirements to drive are therefore more than simply being able to steer a car, personality aspects (e.g. alcohol consumption style, risk taking, hazard perception), health and performance related factors (e.g. reaction capacity or concentration) are integrated in the general concept of fitness to drive. For almost 60 years the Medical-Psychological Assessment (MPA) has been an important method to assess driver‘s requirements for safe driving in Germany. MPA has recently been shown to be highly effective in substantially reducing the number of subsequent driving under the influence offences, as shown in several evaluation studies, a most recent one published in 2012. The presented manual is an introduction to the minimum standards of requirements connected with driving motor vehicles. It gives a description of the MPA-system and its procedure of decision by giving several examples to illustrate the stages of data collection and integration. The special value of this guide book is on one hand its interdisciplinarity in a combined medical and psychological approach. On the other hand this publication in English, is the firs time to enable a major circle of interested researchers throughout Europe and other countries to access the contributions of psychology, medicine, toxicology and engineering to the assessment of drivers in Germany. A standardized examination process, principles and rules of data integration are important contributions towards a fair, transparent and valid driver assessment, which supports the applicant in his or her attempts to get back a withdrawn driving licence. (Author/publisher)
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