Also called: Distracted driving · Drugged driving · Drunk driving
Important: This page is general information, not medical advice. It does not recommend or prescribe any treatment. Always consult your doctor or pharmacist before starting, stopping or changing any medicine.
About Impaired Driving
Impaired driving is dangerous. It's the cause of more than half of all car crashes. It means operating a motor vehicle while you are affected by:
- Alcohol
- Legal or illegal drugs
- Sleepiness
- Distractions, such as using a cell phone or texting
- Having a medical condition which affects your driving
For your safety and the safety of others, do not drive while impaired. Have someone else drive you or take public transportation when you cannot drive. If you need to take a call or send a text message, pull over.
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
It sits within Safety Issues.
When to speak to someone. Reading about a topic cannot tell you whether it applies to you. Speak to a doctor or pharmacist if symptoms are severe, sudden, getting worse, or simply not going away — and seek emergency care immediately for chest pain, breathing difficulty, sudden weakness or confusion, or a serious allergic reaction.
Research on Impaired Driving
74 studies areregistered for this condition on ClinicalTrials.gov, the U.S. National Library of Medicine's public registry. A selection is below — the links go straight to the registry entry, not to a summary of ours.
What a registered study does and does not mean. Registration means a study exists and has been declared publicly. It says nothing about whether the treatment being tested works, is safe, or is available to you. Many studies find no benefit — that is what research is for. Never seek out an experimental treatment on the strength of a registry entry alone.
Research currently under way
- An AI-Based Prediction of Cognitive Capacity in Older Adults and Individuals With Mild Cognitive Impairment During Virtual Reality Driving TasksNational Cheng-Kung University Hospital
- Examining the Role of Tolerance on Dose-dependent Effects of Acute THC on Oculomotor and Cognitive PerformanceJohns Hopkins University
- Assessing the Effectiveness of Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) With Personalized Feedback Intervention to Reduce Polysubstance Impaired Driving in Young Adults Aged 18-30University of Washington
- Use of Driving Tests to Evaluate Patient Performance on Oral OpioidsAsokumar Buvanendran
- Evaluation of an Interactive Mobile Phone-Based Brief Intervention to Reduce Substance-Impaired DrivingWestern Kentucky University
- Validating a Novel Driving Simulation-based MWT Against the Standard MWT in an OSA-cohort Challenged by CPAP-withdrawalStefan Lakämper
Research already completed
- Combined Alcohol and Cannabis Effects on Skills of Young DriversCentre for Addiction and Mental Health
- In-Vehicle Real-Time Cannabis Influenced Driving DetectionUniversity of Bern
- Delta-8-THC vs. Delta-9-THC on Simulated Driving PerformanceJohns Hopkins University
- Novel Approaches to Assessing Cannabis Impaired Driving (NAACID)Colorado School of Public Health
- Design and Evaluation of an In-Vehicle Real-Time Drunk Driving Detection SystemUniversity of Bern
- Preventing Impaired Driving Among AdolescentsStanford University
Study data from ClinicalTrials.gov, a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine. Retrieved 2026-07-30. Registry entries are supplied by study sponsors and investigators; ClinicalTrials.gov does not verify their scientific validity. PocketsInfo is not affiliated with, and not endorsed by, the NLM or the NIH.
Where to read more
Rather than paraphrase, we point you to the primary sources. Every link below is to a government health agency, a national institute or a recognised medical body — grouped by what you are trying to find out.
Start Here
- Dangers of Distracted DrivingFederal Communications Commission
Diagnosis and Tests
- Blood Alcohol LevelNational Library of Medicine
Statistics and Research
- Alcohol-Impaired DrivingNational Highway Traffic Safety Administration
- Distracted Driving in 2024National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
- Impaired Driving FactsCenters for Disease Control and Prevention
- State Alcohol-Impaired-Driving EstimatesNational Highway Traffic Safety Administration
Clinical Trials
- ClinicalTrials.gov: Driving Under the InfluenceNational Institutes of Health
Medical subject headings
Clinicians and researchers index this subject under Driving Under the Influence, Distracted Driving. These are the terms to use when searching medical literature.
This page is built from the MedlinePlus health topic record for Impaired Driving, a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM), National Institutes of Health. Information is from MedlinePlus.gov. PocketsInfo is not affiliated with, and is not endorsed by, the NLM or the NIH. Retrieved 30 July 2026.