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Prescription drugs can impair your driving more than alcohol, says Ian
Hindmarch of the University of Surrey in Guildford, who has studied the effect
of tricyclic antidepressants, commonly prescribed for the past 40 years. He
asked volunteers on driving simulators to hit the brakes whenever a brake light
flashed, and found that antidepressants delayed reaction times by 120
milliseconds—twice that expected from drinking the legal limit of alcohol.
The patients didn’t realise they were impaired, however. “They are compromised
without knowing it,” says Hindmarch.