Driving and migraine

How to manage driving is something that people living with migraine are often concerned about. Here is an overview of the key issues to consider.

Driving safely

Many people with migraine can and do drive. Living with migraine does not on its own prevent you from driving.

The condition does not create any safety concerns, unless you:

• drive during a migraine attack. A migraine attack can affect your driving because the symptoms of an attack can make you vulnerable to driving errors and place you and others at risk of accidents and injury
• drive while taking medications that affect your ability to drive safely.

Managing migraine and driving

If you do experience an attack while driving you should stop your car and immediately treat your migraine.

You should not resume driving until the attack is over and you are sure that your medications will not interfere with your ability to drive. Therefore it’s important to check if any migraine medication you take has this effect.

As migraine attacks can occur at any time, we would recommend having a plan in place as to what you would do if you had a migraine attack and were driving or needed to drive somewhere.

The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) and the Driver and Vehicle Agency (DVA) Northern Ireland

You must notify the DVLA in England, Wales and Scotland (in writing) if your migraine attacks are sudden and disabling or are likely to be a source of danger to the public or if your doctor tells you to. If you have notified the DVLA and your migraine attacks become worse than previously disclosed to the DVLA you should contact them again.

If you live in England, Scotland or Wales you can contact the DVLA Medical Enquiries team for information and guidance on driving with migraine.

If you live in Northern Ireland you must contact the DVA if you’ve had or currently have a medical condition that may affect your driving.

Help if you’re unable to drive

Some people may no longer drive due to their migraine. If this happens you may be able to access support to help with transport. We have more information about help with travel and transport on our financial support and benefits page.

About our information

This information has been written by The Migraine Trust Information and Support Services team. It has been reviewed by our panel of expert health professionals and people affected by migraine.

Our information has been awarded the PIF TICK quality mark for trustworthy health information.

If you have feedback on our information, please get in touch at: feedback@migrainetrust.org

References for our information are available on request.