Theme 6: Medical Aspects of Fitness to Drive

This is a programme of DfT road safety research that aims to provide better scientific evidence to support the work of the DVLA Medical Unit and to improve the basis on which medical professionals give driving advice to persons suffering from several medical conditions.

Although pre-existing ill health makes only a relatively small contribution to road accidents, both the declaration and the assessment of medical fitness to drive is part of the licensing process. In addition, specific advice given by a person's clinician informs the driver on whether he or she can drive safely. This programme of research aims to improve the quality of evidence underlying both licensing decisions and medical advice to ensure that risks to road safety are minimised while drivers are not unnecessarily restricted.

Central scotomata and driving (No.79) (2 Mb)

To provide an assessment of the usefulness of different test methods that can be used to take decisions on whether a driver with defects in their central visual field is fit to drive. The report concludes that the current test used, despite its limitations, is the only one of those evaluated that can be used for the full range of conditions causing defects. Some proposals for improvements in tests and testing are made.

Published:

04 February 2008

Expert Consensus Workshop: Diabetic Retinopathy and Fitness to Drive (No. 72) (333 kb)

This document presents an expert consensus view on the Impairing effects of diabetic retinopathy in drivers.

Published:

23 November 2006

The Role of Risk Analysis in the Evaluation of Fitness to Drive (No. 40) (135 kb)

This report reviews and discusses the role of risk analysis in evaluating fitness to drive, the studies needed for a risk-based assessment and the two stages in the application of risk analysis.

Published:

20 August 2004

Risk Analysis and Fitness to Drive: An Evaluation of Sensitivity Issues (No. 41) (155 kb)

This report re-examines the conclusions of the Road Safety Report No 40 concerning risk analysis' role in evaluating fitness to drive and focuses on the sensitivity of the results and the assumptions on which they are based.

Published:

20 August 2004

Medical Aspects of Excessive Daytime Sleepiness: A consensus workshop (No. 45) (424 kb)

This report recounts an expert workshop on the implications of the medical aspects of Excessive Daytime Sleepiness (EDA) to driving and proposes revisions to the relevant Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency documentation.

Published:

20 August 2004

An Approach to measuring the Visual Field Component of Fitness to Drive (No. 49) (5 Mb)

This report examines the agreement between the current method of measuring visual field defects for assessing medical fitness to drive and a new method using merged bilateral monocular visual fields.

Published:

20 August 2004

Stratifying Hypoglycaemic Event Risk in Insulin Treated Diabetes (No. 61) (414 kb)

Road safety research report.

Published:

26 March 2006

Risk of acute vascular events following initial myocardial infarction or stroke (292 kb)

Road safety research report no.65. Follow-up research on the probability of further acute vascular events after the initial event, including assessment of risks and a review of various clinical tests.

Published:

08 May 2006

Expert Consensus Workshop: Driving Safety and Cardiac Ischaemia, 7 - 8 July 2005 (340 kb)

Road safety research report no. 67. The aim of this research was to gather up-to-date information on the ability to predict future cardiac events from results of various clinical investigations into ischaemic heart disease.

Published:

17 May 2006