Drugs and Driving: A Research Review

Joscelyn, Kent B.; Maickel, Roger P. · 1977 · ROSA P / United States. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

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Summary

This 1977 report, prepared for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) by researchers at Indiana University, reviews the state of research regarding the relationship between drug use (excluding alcohol alone) and highway safety. The study was motivated by the increasing prevalence of psychoactive drug use among the driving population and the need to define the scope of the problem, identify immediate countermeasures, and determine future research priorities. The authors aimed to ascertain the "state of the art" of existing literature to guide policy and further investigation. The methodology involved a comprehensive review of the existing research literature and an International Symposium convened in April 1975. The research team identified over 10,000 potential sources published prior to 1975, reviewing more than 2,500 in detail to create a file of approximately 600 key documents. The report synthesizes findings from these documents, symposium proceedings, and subsequent communications. It categorizes the literature into experimental studies, which examine drug effects on behavior in laboratory settings, and epidemiological studies, which investigate the presence of drugs in traffic crash victims. The review also addresses pharmacological definitions, detection methods, and legal constraints. The findings reveal significant methodological limitations in existing research. Experimental studies often suffer from design flaws, such as inadequate controls, atypical subject populations (e.g., college students), and artificial testing environments that fail to replicate real-world driving tasks. Consequently, while these studies confirm that many drug classes—including sedatives, antidepressants, and antihistamines—can impair behavior, they rarely establish precise dose-response relationships for driving. Epidemiological studies are limited by small sample sizes, missing data, and testing methods that often fail to screen for commonly used drugs like diazepam metabolites. Furthermore, the mere presence of a drug in a crash victim does not necessarily prove impairment or causation, complicating interpretation. However, the literature consistently reports the presence of drugs in accident-involved drivers and highlights the significant safety risk posed by the interaction of drugs and alcohol. The report concludes that while drugs clearly play a role in traffic crash causation, existing research is insufficient to quantify the extent of this involvement or define specific risk levels. The authors recommend against large-scale countermeasure programs until the problem is better defined. Instead, they advocate for rigorous, large-scale, multidisciplinary studies to establish drug usage patterns and exposure data among drivers. Key recommendations include securing legal privilege for researchers to ensure honest reporting, improving inter-agency communication, and enforcing existing laws prohibiting driving under the influence of drugs. The study emphasizes that future efforts must prioritize methodological rigor and adequate funding to bridge the gaps in current knowledge.

Key finding

Existing research confirms that drugs are commonly used by drivers and are frequently present in accident-involved individuals, but methodological limitations prevent precise quantification of their specific role in traffic crash causation.

Methodology

review

Provenance

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Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant on 2026-06-10; verification: verified.

Topics

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• polydrug
• illicit drugs
• prescription meds
• cannabis
• alcohol
• opioids

Information type

What kind of knowledge this paper contributes, grouped by family — independent of topic (what it is about) and method (how it was studied).

• Empirical Findings: observational prevalence, physiological data
• Methodological Resource: validation psychometrics