IMMORTAL - Impaired motorists, methods of roadside testing and assessment for licensing
Overview
Background & policy context:
Road traffic safety is a significant issue for society. In the European Union there are approximately 45,000 fatalities per year. At an assumed cost of 3.6 million euros per fatality, the total annual financial loss can be estimated to be 162 million kEuro. The majority of these accidents are caused by human error. Driver impairment is a significant source of error. Thus, Europe must develop a rational transport policy to support interventions to reduce traffic accidents attributable to driver impairment.
Objectives:
The aim of IMMORTAL has been to provide evidence for proposing intervention methods for driver impairment, and support the future development of European policy governing driver impairment legislation. The forms of intervention method considered will be licensing assessment for chronic impairment of driver fitness, and roadside impairment assessment for acute impairment of driver state. At present, there is insufficient information to support policy and the development of valid and standard protocols to evaluate driver impairment. On this basis, IMMORTAL has a number of specific evidentiary objectives to support the stated aim, i.e. to:
- Investigate the influence of chronic and acute impairment factors driving performance and accident risk;
- recommend criteria ('tolerance levels') for high risk categories of impairment; and
- provide key information to support formulation of European policy on licensing assessment and roadside testing.
Methodology:
IMMORTAL is innovative in terms of:
- The multi-disciplinary expertise and European representation of the consortium;
- the range of impairment factors considered and the comprehensive nature of the research;
- the inclusion of a User Representation Panel (URP) comprised of relevant members of government ministries, enforcement agencies, and road user associations from participant member states;
- the relevance to EU policy and standardisation;
- the range of research methodologies applied;
- the specification, verification and exploitation of testing and assessment protocols; and
- the methods of dissemination and exploitation of programme results.
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