Road traffic accidents constitute a major public health challenge and cause, every year, a large number of losses of life and injuries worldwide (Chapter 1). In 2003, in its White Paper on European transport policy, the European Commission fixed the target date of 2010 to halve the number of road deaths, and, in 2006 launched the European Union (EU) project Driving under the Influence of Drugs, Alcohol and Medicines (DRUID) with the purpose of obtaining scientific support to its transport policy to reach the 2010th road safety target (Chapter 1). DRUID aims to study how the use of alcohol, illicit drugs and medicines can affect driving fitness and to establish guidelines and measures to combat impaired driving (Chapter 1). This PhD dissertation was part of the DRUID project and aimei to assess the impact of psychoactive medications on traffic safety. Based on the main objective of this thesis, the following research questions were developed and answered: I) The dimension of the use of potentially driving impairing medications in the general driving population (Chapter 2 and 3); 2) The risks of experiencing a road traffic accident while being exposed to psychoactive medicines (Chapter 4, 5 and 6); 3) The development of criteria and methodology for establishing a European classification system for relevant therapeutic medication groups and driving (Chapter 7). (Author/publisher)
Samenvatting