In car accident cases, the defense may raise a medical claiming that the driver suffered a black out or seizure or some other malady that should forgive the negligence of striking our client. Of course, whether a medical condition did occur or whether there was adequate warning to cause the driver to take proper precautions, including not to drive are proper considerations. The purpose of this post is to address questions raised about the frequency of verifiable epileptic seizures as the cause of car accidents.

From my research and experience, the risk of epilepsy causing car accidents are quite small. A study performed a few years back in the journal Neurology, demonstrate that in the U.S., 86 drivers per year died as a result of crashes caused by seizures from 1995-1997. Overall, about 44,000 U.S. drivers per year were killed in accidents during the same period.

A team of researchers the neurology department at Johns Hopkins analyzed data compiled from crash victims’ death certificates. While people with seizures had 2.3 times the rate of fatal driver crashes as people with cardiovascular disease or high blood pressure and 4.6 times the rate for patients with diabetes, most deadly wrecks had nothing to do with any of those health problems.

Instead, that study found that alcohol was the biggest problem, accounting for 31% of fatal driver crashes and claiming more than 13,400 lives per year, on average. “The total number of deaths due to alcohol-related fatal crashes is 6.6 times greater than the number of fatal crashes associated with medical conditions and 156 times greater [than] those associated with seizures,” say the researchers.

In addition, states regulate driving by those with epilepsy. This may include requiring an epileptic to be free of seizures for three to 12 months before driving or setting other restrictions. Certainly, this study supports allowing those individuals whose seizures are controlled to drive.