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Abstract

When a driver with epilepsy experiences a seizure behind the wheel, she is more likely than not to cause an accident. Consequently, all fifty states and the District of Columbia have statutes, regulations, and policies governing drivers with epilepsy and the physicians who treat them. Although these laws aim to protect the states' interest in public safety, many of them are premised on the inaccurate assumption that drivers with epilepsy have higher crash rates than the general population. They provide blanket restrictions for a highly individualized disorder and ignore evidence that drivers with other disorders or diseases should be of similar or greater concern. More Americans are living with epilepsy now than at any point in history. But with advances in medicine and technology, people with epilepsy can control their seizures better now than ever before. This renders many of these laws unnecessary or, at the very least, unreasonably restrictive. This Comment argues that a wave of reform is due. If legislators, administrators, and policymakers want their laws to be rooted in science, rather than stigma, they must revisit state laws that unreasonably restrict drivers with epilepsy and burden the physicians who treat them.

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