Abstract
We retrospectively analyzed forensic autopsies of the motor vehicle drivers. Thirty-three victims had died of disease while driving a vehicle（Sudden death while driving）. Eight victims died of injuries, but had not attempted any avoidance maneuvers immediately before the accident（Traumatic death without avoidance maneuvers）. In both groups, more than 70% of victims suffered from any disease, hypertension, cardiac or aortic disease, and hyperlipidemia. Injury severity score was significantly higher in the victims of “Traumatic death without avoidance maneuvers” than those of “Sudden death while driving”（37.0±2.3 vs. 4.7±7.8, p‹0.001）. When the drivers suffer from sudden-illness while driving vehicles, most of them are unable to avoid collisions without attempting avoidance maneuvers. There have been some victims who suffered from moderate to severe traffic injuries owing to the undiagnosed sudden-illness while driving a vehicle. For the drivers with traffic injuries, medical personnel have to find the latent sudden-illness which might disturb the driving with expanding the scope.
