Whenever you think to yourself "People couldnt be that stupid, right?" read this study and plan accordingly.
Over 40% of deceased drivers in vehicle crashes test positive for THC: Study
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Re: Over 40% of deceased drivers in vehicle crashes test positive for THC: Study
#12Wish the paper were available - would love to know the percentage with alcohol.
The other question I have - my prior is that a bad driver (tired, drunk, high) is something like 70:30 odds of killing themselves vs some innocent bystander dying because of their actions. I have anecdotally heard of several sad tales where some guy is on his Nth DUI and kills an entire family, while he walks away from the accident without a scratch. Meaning are the rates of fatalities involving THC actually higher, but the detectably inebriated person managed to walk away without dying.
Re: Over 40% of deceased drivers in vehicle crashes test positive for THC: Study
#13An issue with having the legal limit at ~2-5ng/ml is that it makes habitual users be over the limit if they have smoked recently or not.[0] Making the prohibition seem unserious to some, not about safety but about punitive control, and in turn making it matter less if you smoke and drive as you are taking the risk of getting into trouble in any case.
The impairments of driving under the influence of alcohol have been extensively studied, but unless I have overlooked the literature it seems that the same investigations have not been carried out with THC.
[0] «Blood THC >2 ng/mL, and possibly even THC >5 ng/mL, does not necessarily represent recent use of cannabis in frequent cannabis users.»; https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03768...
Re: Over 40% of deceased drivers in vehicle crashes test positive for THC: Study
#14[deleted]
Re: Over 40% of deceased drivers in vehicle crashes test positive for THC: Study
#15This feels like we’re missing a dimension or threeve, the one that comes to mind immediately would be whether or not the deceased driver was at fault for the incident.
Re: Over 40% of deceased drivers in vehicle crashes test positive for THC: Study
#16I’m not surprised so many deceased drivers were under the influence of THC. I see people smoking and vaping at stoplights all the time. I am however, surprised this study claims legalization didn’t change the rate. Anecdotally, on the west coast, I’ve seen far more of this, and also people casually smoking in public spaces (parks or train stations or whatever) since legalization.
Obviously the study is not claiming that rates of THC use in general remain the same.
One possible reason: the “new recruit” people who are now willing to use cannabis BECAUSE it is legal are also rule-following by being willing to stay off the road after using it. Perfectly plausible to me.
Re: Over 40% of deceased drivers in vehicle crashes test positive for THC: Study
#17I am curious what percentge of the general populous test positive for THC. It would give better context to a dead drivers testing positive for THC.
> It would give better context to a dead drivers testing positive for THC. No it wouldn't. People make those excuses because it's weed, but you would have never posted that on an article about alcohol.
> you would have never posted that on an article about alcohol
Well of course not, as the two drugs have completely different intoxication side effects.
Re: Over 40% of deceased drivers in vehicle crashes test positive for THC: Study
#18I am curious what percentge of the general populous test positive for THC. It would give better context to a dead drivers testing positive for THC.
> “An average level of 30.7 ng/mL generally means those people must have consumed marijuana at some time close to driving. This isn’t about residual use; it’s about recent consumption.”
If we are at 40% of the population being high at any given moment I think we are having extremely serious societal problems around mental health. Occasional use is not a big deal IMHO, but if a person is spending 40% of waking hours impaired that person has some serious unmet psychological needs.
Re: Over 40% of deceased drivers in vehicle crashes test positive for THC: Study
#19Based on the headline, I was guessing it was any amount of positivity, and may be close to the population level, but it's actually impairment levels of THC: > In a review of 246 deceased drivers, 41.9% tested positive for active THC in their blood, with an average level of 30.7 ng/mL — far exceeding most state impairment limits. Since COVID in CA, it feels like driving has become far more dangerous with much more law…
reading the paper, I’d say this is a case of hoofbeats meaning horses- people are just getting high and crashing.. Although, this seems like a case where the average is very vulnerable to a ‘spiders georg’ type distortion, especially because of the tolerances people build.
Re: Over 40% of deceased drivers in vehicle crashes test positive for THC: Study
#20Based on the headline, I was guessing it was any amount of positivity, and may be close to the population level, but it's actually impairment levels of THC: > In a review of 246 deceased drivers, 41.9% tested positive for active THC in their blood, with an average level of 30.7 ng/mL — far exceeding most state impairment limits. Since COVID in CA, it feels like driving has become far more dangerous with much more law…
>Since COVID in CA, it feels like driving has become far more dangerous with much more lawlessness regarding excessive speeding and running red lights, going into the left lane to turn right in front of stopped cars, all sorts of weird things
NYC has had the same effect since COVID, and over the last year or two it's gotten to the point where every single light at every busy intersection in Manhattan you get 2-3 cars speeding through the red light right after it turns. I bike ride a lot so I'm looking around at drivers a lot, and for the most part the crazy drivers seem to be private citizens in personal cars, not Uber or commercial/industrial drivers.