Effects of Medicinal Drugs on Fitness to Drive

Driving a car is a skill that incorporates many different functions, such as cognitive processes, sensory perceptions and motor skills. Evidence that drugs impair driving ability comes from epidemiological as well as experimental studies. The chapter presents an overview of medicinal drugs that could impair driving performance as tested with the on-the-road driving test. Hypnotics are meant to induce sleep in patients who suffer from insomnia. Anxiolytic drugs are used for the treatment of anxiety. There are several different classes of anti-depressants. These classes are based on their mechanism of action. The group of anti-histamines includes chemically different compounds that all share the pharmacological capacity of preventing histamine from binding to its receptor and diminishing allergies’ symptoms. The chapter provides an overview of the studies using the on-the road driving test for measuring the impairing effects of psychoactive prescription drugs on driving performance