UMaas - Maastricht University, Faculty of Psychology
Netherlands
The "Experimental Psychopharmacology Unit" at the Faculty of Psychology of Maastricht University (UM) is dedicated to study human pharmacological models of cognitive and psychomotor dysfunctions and conducts applied research on the influence of drugs on traffic safety. The group has developed two instrumented vehicles for conducting Drugs and Driving research in standardised on-the-road driving tests in normal traffic. At present three actual driving test have been employed for measuring driving performance:
- the Road Tracking Test measures straight road driving using Standard Deviation of Lateral Position (SDLP), an index of weaving;
- the Car-Following Test measures Brake Reaction Time, Headway, Time to Speed Adaptation and Time to Collision, and
- the City Driving Test measures general driving proficiency in a as derived from behavioural observation.
Drug-induced changes in driving performance are compared to a predefined criterion level for determining their practical relevance. This criterion level corresponds to a change in driving performance observed in drivers conducting the same tests, under similar conditions, with blood alcohol concentrations of 0.05 % (i.e. the legal limit in most EU Union countries). The group has conducted numerous driving studies involving both medicinal drugs and illicit drugs and has produced a range of scientific papers that have been published in well-ranked, peer reviewed, international journals.