Within the CHU in Caen, the University’s “Mobility: cognition and temporality” laboratory, recently certified by the INSERM, is currently measuring the impact of medicinal drug consumption, particularly sleeping pills, on road safety. This work is part of the European DRUID programme, aimed at establishing the influence of psychotropic drugs on driving.

So what impact do psychotropic drugs have on driving? Some partial studies have already been conducted here and there across the globe, however none has, as yet, clearly demonstrated the influence of medicinal or illicit drugs on road safety. In 2004, the European Union consequently decided to provide 19 million Euros to fund a vast research programme entitled DRUID (DRiving Under the Influence of Drugs, alcohol and medicines), the results of which should, by the autumn of 2010, form a solid basis for drafting appropriate standardised European directives. Coordinated by the German Federal Highway Research Institute (BASt), the project reunites institutions and researchers from over twenty European nations. In France, Caen University’s “Mobility: cognition and temporality” laboratory, certified by INSERM early this year, is involved in the experimental aspects of the study. In partnership with the INRETS (French National Institute for Transport and Safety Research), the laboratory is equipped, in particular, with a driving simulator enabling driver behaviour and “misbehaviour” to be recorded and analysed. « Concurrently, oculomotor and neuropsychological tests enable us to measure the effects of medicinal drugs on attention, memory, inhibition and speed of reaction…” explains Marie-Laure Bocca, lecturer-researcher and the linchpin of the project which is also occupying, on a daily basis, one post-doctoral researchers, one PhD student and a research technician, within the laboratory managed by Pierre Denise. “Three clinicians from the CHU sleep study unit are also involved in the project, along with three pharmacologists performing analyses on the effects of medicines on sleep and from blood and urine samples,” she adds.

Results are expected by the autumn of 2010

The project really got going in October 2007. “Since each country was using different methods, we started by homogenising measurements, criteria, parameters and points of comparison.” Today, the experimental phase is fully underway. “Our tests focus essentially on the effects of sleeping pills, which are among the most widely prescribed drugs, all categories combined,” explains Marie-Laure Bocca. “Tests are carried out thanks to help from “healthy” volunteers, but the project also involves a population of patients suffering from insomnia and for whom these medicines are regularly prescribed, for, even if we demonstrate the effect of these drugs on driving, it is also important to assess whether patients receiving them represent a higher or a lower risk than untreated patients.” Laboratory experiments have already identified differences depending on the driver’s age. The older he/she is, the greater the effect sleeping pills may have on driving. However, it is important to note that the effects observed among young subjects are not predictive of those observed among older subjects, since one of the studied drugs appears to represent a risk exclusively among elderly subjects. As a matter of interest, these preliminary conclusions already secured Marie-Laure Bocca a prize at the French Congrès du Sommeil (Conference on Sleep) in Lille in November 2008. “We will also soon be measuring the effects of the association between these soporifics and other medicines, analgesics in particular. However, it is a very time-consuming affair and will undoubtedly continue beyond the DRUID programme.”

Results are expected by the autumn of 2010. All of the knowledge gathered by the project’s different partners, who meet twice yearly, should enable other work groups to formulate clear and precise messages, not only aimed at the medical community and the general public, but also at legislators, one of the aims being to identify a threshold, comparable to those applied to alcohol consumption, above which the consumption of drugs and medicines should be considered a hazard for road safety. More generally speaking, the European Commission is looking to reduce by 75% the number of deaths due to road accidents by 2025.

Marie-Laure Bocca
Lecturer-researcher, member of the ESPRI INSERM laboratory
“Mobility: cognition and temporality” On secondment from the University of Paris Sud-11.
Tel: 02 31 06 54 22

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