Driving and New Technologies for Diabetes.

Abstract

For many, driving a motor vehicle is an intrinsic part of everyday independent living for travel to and from the workplace, at work as part of the duties, shopping for essential goods etc. Driving involves a complex series of actions involving visual, visuospatial, cognition, memory and motor skills. Medical conditions including diabetes can affect these skills adversely and regulatory authorities have the challenging task of measuring the impact of medical conditions on driving and assessing what risk is societally acceptable, recognising that risk can never be completely eliminated. In the UK, around 40 million currently active driving licences exist with around 600,000 of these drivers having diabetes. Driving licences in the UK (and EU) are stratified into “group 1” (car, motorbike) and “group 2” (> 3.5 tonnes including lorries and buses etc).1