Disobedience and driving in patients with epilepsy.

OBJECTIVE

Motor vehicle accidents direct legislators to ensure pubic safety. We attempted to characterize and quantify driving risk in patients with seizures (PWS).

METHODS

We delivered 12-question surveys to 287 consecutive PWS at an epilepsy clinic in Florida. Illegal and disobedient driving practices were analyzed.

RESULTS

Eighty-three of 236 (35.2%) PWS were eligible to drive and 62.3% were ineligible with a seizure in <6 months (P<0.001, 95% CI: 0.57-0.70). Among the ineligible responders, 23.8% (35/147) of ineligible responders were illegally driving (14.83% of cohort); 11.86% (28/236) of PWS were disobedient refusing to obey the law, and 8.9% (21/236) of PWS were defiant and knew the law. Sadness (75/236, 31.8%) was the most common reaction to restriction, but disobedient PWS were angry (10/28, 35.7%).

CONCLUSION

Overall, a small number of PWS are disobedient and illegally driving. A targeted approach to high-risk drivers with repeated verbal and supplemental driving information may help avoid unnecessary universal physician reporting for PWS.