Download Driver`s take your medicine

Drivers, take your medicine
Jim O'Rourke
June 5, 2011
ANTHONY KITT is a non-drinker, but he has been regularly getting behind the wheel of a
''car'' under the influence of vodka, drugs or a combination of both.
But other road users do not have to be worried.
The 33-year-old coach driver is one of eight volunteers taking part in a University of Sydney
study using a driving simulator to test the effects of popular prescribed painkillers and
relaxant drugs on driving skills.
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Dr Stefanie Leung and volunteer Anthony Kitt research the effects of medication on driving. Photo: Jacky Ghossein
Figures from a 2007 Royal Adelaide Hospital study show that benzodiazepines - anti-anxiety
and sleeping drugs with brand names such as Valium, Serepax and Normison - are implicated
in 15 per cent of crash injury cases at Australian hospitals. Painkillers such as codeine and
pethidine are found in almost 4 per cent of drivers seriously injured in road accidents.
The researchers are testing the reactions of volunteers who have taken doses of codeine and
the anti-anxiety drug oxazepam, sometimes in combination with alcohol, on the driving
simulator at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital.
Lead researcher Stefanie Leung said her team, funded by the National Health and Medical
Research Council, want to determine whether these ''everyday medicines'' compromise road
safety.
''Based on the figures we've seen from hospital emergency rooms, it raises the question:
should people be driving if they are taking medicines?'' she said.
The Australian Drug Foundation found in 2007 that almost a quarter of Australians ignore
warnings on the labels of prescription medicines advising users not to drive after taking the
pills.
Dr Leung said there was a general belief that when people were prescribed drugs that they
were safe to drive while under the medication.
''But that is not always the case. Medications such as sleeping pills can affect a person a day
after the medication was taken,'' she said.
''Sometimes this information is not communicated to the patient so we are trying to find
evidence that will help educate doctors and patients about potential problems.''
The driving simulator has two infrared cameras that focus on the face, tracking gaze and
measuring reaction times and decision-making when volunteers are presented with a series of
scenarios, such as pedestrians suddenly stepping onto the road.
Volunteers are given either the codeine, oxazepam or alcohol to take their blood to the legal
limit of 0.05, or a placebo.
On the day The Sun-Herald visited the hospital, Mr Kitt was given orange juice, which may
or may not have contained vodka, and another substance intravenously. He was not told what
drug he received or if it was the placebo.
''''I've noticed the difference [on the simulator], don't worry about that,'' he said.
Professor Paul Haber, head of addiction medicine at the University of Sydney, said the
problem of people driving under the influence of prescribed drugs was yet to peak.
''But these drugs have benefits, so we have to work out a way of balancing the benefits and
the risks,'' he said. ''That is why this research is so important.''
Dr Leung is still looking for volunteers, who must be aged 25 to 50 and hold a current driver's
licence.