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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. Advertisement: Story continues below 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.