[The driving license and epilepsy (author's transl)]

Italy is one of the few countries in Europe with no legislation specifically concerning driving licenses and epilepsy. We made a survey of 321 epileptics all over 18 years of age; 80,4% of them had epilepsy (temporal lobe). 47,7% of the 321 had a driving license, 2,8% had their license withdrawn because of epilepsy. The frequency of attacks among those with licenses was as follows: 52,9% rarely had attacks (1 every 2 years or even less often), 17,7% had attacks yearly and 29,4% had frequent attacks (1 a month, 1 a week or even daily). About 2% of the patients examined had had accidents because of attacks; none of the accidents were very serious. In spite of the lack of legislation, a high number of patients has driving license. However our investigations have shown that they were careful in their driving and scrupulous about treatment and medical check-ups. The main problem is that epileptics with a driving license may encounter serious difficulties with insurance companies if they have a car accident. It is to be hoped that in Italy appropriate measures are taken parallel to those of other European Countries.