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Abstract
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The greatest epidemiological problems of the day is the traffic or highway collision. Steps taken to prevent collisions can be said to be "preventive medicine".
Evidence indicates that administrative, law enforcement, and judicial efforts to curb the highway death rate have been increasingly successful.
Regulation of drivers is applied preventive medicine in that it provides useful information on drivers. Examining procedures screen out unsafe drivers, and problem drivers are reexamined and reappraised in the process of the driver improvement program.
An important area is that of drivers having mental or physical disabilities. The Department of Motor Vehicles relies heavily on the medical profession in making licensing determinations in such cases, and physicians frequently find departmental information on a patient to be informative. The determination of safe driving capability, especially in such cases as epilepsy, diabetes, mental conditions, and alcoholism, would be difficult without the assistance of the medical profession. The Department asks for the cooperation of that profession. |