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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

#71

Post by tiltowait »

epistasis wrote: post #7

Based 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…

Traffic fatalities increased during the pandemic[1]. AAA released a study examining the effects in 2024[2].

[1]: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10149345/ [2]: https://newsroom.aaa.com/2024/08/the-pandemics-tenacious-gri...

Re: Over 40% of deceased drivers in vehicle crashes test positive for THC: Study

#72

Post by epistasis »

fn-mote wrote: post #27
epistasis wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “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 i…

This reading doesn’t make sense. There’s no way to extrapolate from this to any statement about 40% of the population, and even 40% of the day is a serious misread imo.

I'm replying to a comment suggesting that this data may be close to population levels rather than something different in the autopsy population.

I'm arguing that if the population data looks anything like the autopsy data, it would imply a massive epidemic of THC overuse.

Re: Over 40% of deceased drivers in vehicle crashes test positive for THC: Study

#73

Post by nothrabannosir »

Benjammer wrote: post #20
epistasis wrote: post #7

Based 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…

Funny I ride a bike in Manhattan & BK (but only post COVID) and I very rarely experience cars going through reds. IME cars here respect traffic lights and stop signs. I try and count cars actually running a red ("speeding" through it) and it's rare, say 1/mo tops. Ymv I guess :)

They do not, though, give an owl's hoot about yielding to straight traffic when turning. I suspect NY drivers are on a big group chat encouraging each other to cut off cyclists and pedestrians, by turning into their lane whenever they see one, and promptly parking there for an hour.

And there's the "squeeze", and "crowding the box". Almost like no car here is truly allowed to ever really stop so they're always gently rolling, just a little, juuuuust a little, just, maybe, I know it's red but maybe just a lil squeeze into the intersection, maybe, squeeze, ...

I don't know how to explain it but if you've been here you'll recognize it I'm sure.

Re: Over 40% of deceased drivers in vehicle crashes test positive for THC: Study

#74

Post by shtzvhdx »

tokai wrote: post #13

An 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…

Even if your point is conceded which I will state as: "the impairment levels are too so that unimpaired habitual pot users appear impaired"

40% of the general population is not a habitual cannabis user. So whether they are "high" or not, folks with high THc levels are dangerous.

Re: Over 40% of deceased drivers in vehicle crashes test positive for THC: Study

#76

Post by y-c-o-m-b »

zoklet-enjoyer wrote: post #63
y-c-o-m-b wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before this year I had only seen 1 wrong way driver in 30 years. In the last year alone I've seen 6! I saw one person going the wrong direction in a round-about. Another person going over the inner portion of a round-about. People stopping in the road for no reason. It's insane. The strange driving patterns is indeed a major issue. I thought it was maybe a Gen Z thing, but often times these people seem to be between…

Come to Fargo. I see it multiple times a year. Usually right after a new semester starts and the farm kids don't know about one ways haha

I'm not talking about one-ways, those are confusing in general. I'm talking about clearly marked off-ramps from freeways. In one situation the person had to drive over a fairly large bump in the median just to enter the wrong side of the freeway; again many signs to prevent such a thing and they still ended up in that predicament. Sometimes miles down the freeway before a cop pulls them over. It's terrifying.

I saw another one where the car tried to turn right into an off-ramp with a line of cars waiting at the light. Like wtf, do you not see the wall of cars and headlights in front of you? Where are you going?!

Re: Over 40% of deceased drivers in vehicle crashes test positive for THC: Study

#77

Post by epistasis »

SecretDreams wrote: post #47
Benjammer wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

Could we verify this against data? Surely if people are trying way worse post covid, that would show up compared to pre covid data by way of accident, fatality, and ticket issuances, e.g.? To the OP, I'm not sure I buy into it being tied to THC which seems to be the implication. Canada isn't seeing this trend, afaik.

Those who are autopsied due to traffic deaths clearly show a massive amount of THC impairment.

But the data here also show that it's a consistent level before and after legalization of cannabis in Ohio. So legalization of cannabis in Ohio did not cause a big increase in impairment-levels of THC in those who died in traffic.

Re: Over 40% of deceased drivers in vehicle crashes test positive for THC: Study

#78

Post by xienze »

Arainach wrote: post #70
xienze wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So until we have a valid method of testing if someone is “too stoned to drive” we have to push back on any attempt to classify marijuana users as ineligible to drive. You’re not really going to win anybody over to the legalization side when you basically say that people can consume as much THC as they want and drive without any penalties because of testing limitations.

On the contrary: we should test for the actual issue (impairment) rather than an arbitrary number.

So you’re advocating that a cop makes a subjective judgement about your impairment level? I don’t see how anyone could find an issue with that.

Re: Over 40% of deceased drivers in vehicle crashes test positive for THC: Study

#79

Post by bko »

epistasis wrote: post #7

Based 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…

I think it's lawlessness overall. For instance, consider San Fransisco traffic citations. Went from around 11k in 2014-2015 steadily down and then fell off a cliff during covid but never recovered (around 1k in 2023).

I remember the sad story of Eric Garner who was killed in 2014 while being arrested for selling loose cigarettes in Staten Island. Today, at least in NYC, you see people parked out in front of the same corner every day selling weed and loose cigarettes. Same people, out in the open. I'm pretty sure that's not a sanctioned dispensary.

Just shows how much things can change in ten years. For whatever reason, police and prosecutors just gave up in enforcing any kind of laws. Seems like an overreaction to whatever problems we had with criminal justice

https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/11nbnxw/san_f...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Michael_Brown

Re: Over 40% of deceased drivers in vehicle crashes test positive for THC: Study

#80

Post by HarHarVeryFunny »

epistasis wrote: post #7

Based 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…

The numbers do appear quite staggering. It can't just be the dead drivers - there must be similar numbers of stoned drivers who are causing accidents, maybe killing others, while surviving themselves.

As far as driving goes, any amount of drugs or alchohol is going to reduce reactions times, in addition to any impaired judgement or ability to control the vehicle. Even a couple of 1/10ths of a second in increased reaction time is enough to make the difference between braking in time and hitting another car or pedestrian/etc.

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