[Professional driving and safety, a target for occupational medicine]

Road traffic injuries constitute one of the main causes of death and disability in Italy and in the European Union. Occupational medicine should pay special attention to the field of road transport because every year a large number of road accidents occur with fatal outcomes. Via health surveillance the occupational physician can play an important role in the prevention of such events.

The aim of the article is to summarize the results of the most recent studies on the main risk factors for road transport safety and discuss possible strategies of health surveillance, according to the recent indications of the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work, Bilbao.

A review of the literature was made.

The scientific literature provides a large amount of interesting information on the most important risk factors for road accidents, such as drinking and drug abuse, sleepiness and other medical conditions, or excessive speed. The presence of numerous and varied hazards for road transport safety requires, as suggested by the Bilbao Agency, the adoption of occupational health measures, including risk assessment, health education, technical and environmental prevention, health surveillance and clinical interventions (diagnosis and rehabilitation of occupational accidents). Moreover, the paper stresses the need to strengthen collaboration between occupational health physicians and other medical specialists.