IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/riskan/v13y1993i3p319-326.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Risks of Licensing Persons with Diabetes to Drive Trucks

Author

Listed:
  • Thomas J. Songer
  • Lester B. Lave
  • Ronald E. LaPorte

Abstract

The 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act forbids employers to bar disabled persons from jobs unless employers can show the disabled person cannot perform the tasks. The Federal Highway Administration will not license persons with diabetes mellitus to drive commercial motor vehicles in interstate commerce. These individuals may experience severe hypoglycemia, greatly increasing their risk of losing control of the truck. This prohibition is currently being reexamined. We describe the disease process leading to severe hypoglycemia and its physical manifestations. To quantify the risks of licensing persons with diabetes to use insulin, we first estimate the number of potential insulin‐using drivers. We estimate that 1420 insulin‐using persons would seek licenses in the United States if they were permitted to do so (920 noninuslin dependent and 500 insulin dependent). Next, we estimate the annual incidence of mild and severe hypoglycemia in these populations. The third step is to estimate the number of hypoglycemic episodes while driving. Estimating the likelihood of a crash due to a mild or severe hypoglycemic episode is the fourth step. We estimate that an additional 42 crashes each year would occur if insulin using persons were licensed to drive commercial motor vehicles in interstate commerce (20 from insulin dependent and 22 from non‐insulin dependent drivers).

Suggested Citation

  • Thomas J. Songer & Lester B. Lave & Ronald E. LaPorte, 1993. "The Risks of Licensing Persons with Diabetes to Drive Trucks," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 13(3), pages 319-326, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:riskan:v:13:y:1993:i:3:p:319-326
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1539-6924.1993.tb01083.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1539-6924.1993.tb01083.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1539-6924.1993.tb01083.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lester B. Lave & Thomas J. Songer & Ronald E. LaPorte, 1993. "Should Persons with Diabetes Be Licensed to Drive Trucks?—Risk Management," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 13(3), pages 327-334, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lester B. Lave & Thomas J. Songer & Ronald E. LaPorte, 1993. "Should Persons with Diabetes Be Licensed to Drive Trucks?—Risk Management," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 13(3), pages 327-334, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.

      More about this item

      Statistics

      Access and download statistics

      Corrections

      All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:riskan:v:13:y:1993:i:3:p:319-326. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

      If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

      If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

      If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

      For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1111/(ISSN)1539-6924 .

      Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

      IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.