"Neighbor beats his wife less often than other neighbor, new federal data shows"
Stoned drivers are safer than drunk ones, new federal data show
161–170 of 281 posts
Re: Stoned drivers are safer than drunk ones, new federal data show
#162I think a lot of people could have told them that. Including, most likely, some of the researchers themselves as well as a few presidents, especially our current one, and most Kennedys.
Re: Stoned drivers are safer than drunk ones, new federal data show
#163Carl Sagan had some things to say about this topic.
Re: Stoned drivers are safer than drunk ones, new federal data show
#164Do not read this and think it's okay to drive high. It's not. Do not drive high. Call an uber or something. I worry that people read studies like this and suddenly justify going out and driving while impaired. Driving is an incredibly dangerous activity on its own. Doing it when you're stoned is a stupid and risky move, and comparing it to how much more dangerous drunk driving is doesn't make it less stupid. If you'v…
You're incorrect and you're incorrectly equating pot to alcohol as if the effects were remotely similar, they are not.
> And after adjusting for age, gender, race and alcohol use, drivers who tested positive for marijuana were no more likely to crash than who had not used any drugs or alcohol prior to driving.
That means users who are too high to drive know it, and don't. It also means you can drive high as long as you're not too high without adversely affecting safety.
Pot is not alcohol, it does not belong in that mold and there's absolutely no reason to single it out of the multitude of other things that can impair driving. Alcohol is a special case precisely because it impairs your judgement.
Re: Stoned drivers are safer than drunk ones, new federal data show
#165Do not read this and think it's okay to drive high. It's not. Do not drive high. Call an uber or something. I worry that people read studies like this and suddenly justify going out and driving while impaired. Driving is an incredibly dangerous activity on its own. Doing it when you're stoned is a stupid and risky move, and comparing it to how much more dangerous drunk driving is doesn't make it less stupid. If you'v…
Well I can say for certain when I take certain allergy meds I know I can't drive for crap. So I usually stay in. And when at work I just deal with the allergies as is since I have a long commute home since the last time I tried driving on allergy meds made it hard to concentrate. So, I can imagine it's not much better driving high on pot.
Re: Stoned drivers are safer than drunk ones, new federal data show
#166Get off your high horse.
Is riding a horse that's high safer than driving while high?
David Nutt would be the man to find out: http://www.encod.org/info/EQUASY-A-HARMFUL-ADDICTION.html
Re: Stoned drivers are safer than drunk ones, new federal data show
#167Earlier quoted context omitted.
My point is: They're getting this data by doing drug tests of drivers in fatal car crashes after the crash has occurred. Previously, 8% of those drivers had cannabis detected. Now, 17% have it detected. What evidence is there that the increased cannabis use is causing these crashes, considering you have to control for the fact that more people in general are using cannabis, so in almost any population (drivers in fat…
Ah, I understand what you're saying now. Still, I think it'd be a stretch to assume that none of those fatalities were actually related to the marijuana use. But I agree, it doesn't necessarily imply causation, just a correlation (which as you say, could in part be coincidental).
You're right, it probably is a stretch. But since they have not demonstrated any evidence either way, the study basically has to be disregarded.
Re: Stoned drivers are safer than drunk ones, new federal data show
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
From the article And after adjusting for age, gender, race and alcohol use, drivers who tested positive for marijuana were no more likely to crash than who had not used any drugs or alcohol prior to driving.
You have to take into account that the population under study -- drivers who tested positive for marijuana -- are people who consumed some amount of marijuana AND judged themselves capable of driving. Some pot smokers will exclude themselves from this population because they estimate that they can no longer drive safely -- myself being one of them. So from this study you cannot conclude that, in general, smoking pot…
Yes you can conclude that precisely because you don't lose the ability to know when you've had too much. Unlike alcohol, pot doesn't affect your ability to judge that.
Re: Stoned drivers are safer than drunk ones, new federal data show
#169As a full supporter of cannabis legalization, I'm also a big supporter of a technology that can instantly detect whether someone's reflexes are impaired by cannabis. Notice that I'm focusing on whether or not they are impaired, as opposed to the amount in their bloodstream. The point being that people that use cannabis regularly for medical reasons don't seem to be impaired by it at all, while newer or more occasiona…
> I'm also a big supporter of a technology that can instantly detect whether someone's reflexes are impaired by cannabis.
We simply don't need that; this presume driving while high is a problem that needs solving and it quite simply isn't. There's no evidence to justify treating pot special like we do alcohol and specifically testing for it.
Re: Stoned drivers are safer than drunk ones, new federal data show
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
Impairment should be the focus, rather than the amount of any substance in anybody's bloodstream. Why not a general test of perception and reaction time?
How do you figure out what is normal for that person, though? Or what is normal to society? How do we set up a test that is fair to most folks? Can we rely on police training to be able to make accomidations (quickly) for those that are disabled, etc?
It's not per-person. There's ONE standard for driving. If for any reason (weakness, blindness, lack of reflexes, impairment, age, etc) you can't reach that bar, then in reality you can't safely drive and so you shouldn't.
It really doesn't matter the age, ability, or whatever - as long as a person CAN reach the minimum requirements to drive on the road, they should be allowed to chose to do so. I don't see a need to discriminate by any means other than performance.