[Impact of diabetes mellitus on driving safety]

Driving ability is controlled by specific regulations. Therefore disabled individuals or those with certain chronic diseases may be affected by these regulations. These latter are based on assumption that the existence and the nature of certain diseases may cause particular hazard; and this could be prevented by introducing certain driving regulations. This hypothesis has not been tested properly, considering the proposed and suspected risk factors. Diabetes mellitus is a good example of the interested medical condition in this field. Review of the literature do not provide adequate information to allow us to conclude whether the insulin treated diabetic person is at higher risk to develop traffic accident, compared with non diabetic individual; and there is no definite explanation whether hypoglycaemia play a causative role in the etiology of traffic accident among insulin treated diabetics. Perhaps the lack of knowledge in this field is due to use of non-standardized methodologies and small sample size studies which make the comparisons difficult. The existing regulations in different countries are based on empirical knowledge and common sense. This often leads to conflictual situations and apparently discriminatory decisions regarding diabetics. Further comparative and prospective studies are needed.