Archived at https://archive.is/89dmG
Fuck driving. You’d be lucky to get me off the couch. 😆
Obviously ACAB, but…I have known a few jackasses who thought nothing of driving while high. Just don’t. And don’t reply to me about how you “know your tolerance” or that you can “handle it”. Fuck you, you’re impaired. Don’t do it.
While in principle, I don’t disagree. If you’re impaired, you shouldn’t drive. I lost a parent after they were hit by a drunk driver.
However, there are monstrously different amounts of impairment. You have reaction times and motor skills, decision making and judgement, awareness and attention.
Implying any type of impairment to be an unequivocal “no” to driving is short sighted, in my opinion. It’s the easy argument to point at any mind-altering substance: caffeine, tobacco, or antidepressants could be classified an impaired driver.
It’s also worth pointing out that even different emotions could dramatically alter driving performance. Not that we would ever think about restrictions on crying while driving.
Drunk driving is a legitimate concern. High driving, despite the vilifying by police, simply doesn’t have even a modest fraction of the stats to back it up. And anecdotally is not remotely the same as alcohol.
Elderly driving is the conversation we don’t apparently want to have. Just because Gamgam can still get around on her own, in the house she’s lived in for 40 years, does NOT make her capable of driving a two ton piece of metal.
Their reaction speed is like a drunk person. Their decision making skills, also akin to drunk people. Elderly drivers injure and/or kill pedestrians and drivers every year, and we’re supposed to be OK with it because they’re old? Fuck no. They should be tested every year if they still want to drive, and losing their license means losing their vehicle too.
Everyone should be tested periodically for reaction time and situational awareness. Every two years if you want to keep your license.
“Boo hoo! That means people won’t be able to drive if they don’t pass!”
GOOD.
It blows my mind how easy it is for drunk drivers to get back behind the wheel. Once someone has proven how overwhelmingly selfish and foolish they are, it’s unfair to everyone else to put us in that danger.
So our solution is simply to weaken civil liberties for everyone with unreasonable searches.
Ummm, if it can fuck with your perceptions when you’re high enough you shouldn’t be behind the wheel of a chunk of metal going a speed. Not enough data is no justification, even if it’s “not as bad”. I have, and I’m sure others also, personal experiences of being high as fuck and barely being able to experience the passage of time in a coherent way, feeling like your forgetting what happened 30 seconds earlier.
Field sobriety shenanigans aside, I really hope we’re not pretending like driving high is okay. Cars can kill, and you had better not be under the influence of anything that is a detriment to you driving safely.
Please, please, tell me you meant to write: “Drunk driving is a legitimate concern. High driving, despite the vilifying by police, simply doesn’t have even a modest fraction of the stats to back it up. And anecdotally is not remotely the same as alcohol. But you still shouldn’t drive under the influence of that either. Police should be required to administer scientifically accurate tests and acceptable blood contents be determined. Not field sobriety tests based on nothing.”
Because else, yikes.
Here’s my anicdotal account:
I have driven high more hours than I have driven sober. I have only ever gotten a ticket or gotten in an accident when completely sober. Despite the assumptions, so far the data points towards me being a safer driver while high on a normal amount of weed.
Are there sufficient studies out there showing fewer accidents while under the influence of weed? Or negligible effect?
Else, I’m gonna have to press X to doubt, and really would rather wait on further studies before letting you think your self-reported performance is convincing.
Weed affects your cognition, I hope we can agree on this. How adversely for driving, according to dose, that I don’t know. Though I don’t think anyone should accept people telling you “nah, it’s fine, trust me bro. I only got into an accident when I was sober!”
Cars are deadly, and you ought to be sober while operating heavy machinery.
Stop doing it until studies are done (and, they will, given how widespread it’s use is legally now), but heck, pressing all sorts of X to doubt on this turning out to be true. It affects your attention. And cars are deadly, so.
You are morally obligated to err on the side of caution here.
Stop driving high, please.
Yikes. Hecking big yikes.
We knew when you advocated for driving high that you do drive high. You pothead losers are all the same.
So, by the logic in your argument, police should stop and perform snap cognitive tests anytime they see someone who looks over the age of 70? Or even 60- as the medical community seems broadly in consensus that cognitive decline kicks off around that point.
So perhaps the bigger question is:
Why are you OK with having elderly drivers on the road, when we know it’s only a matter of time before they aren’t capable of the necessary tasks required to safely operate a vehicle, at speed, and in dynamic environments, and yet your focus is on the hypothetical potential of marijuana impaired driving?
Per my original comment: elderly driving is the conversation we are refusing to have- and to add on, it’s because elderly drivers are not capable of self-regulating their behavior, and yet if elderly motor vehicle laws come to pass, the entire Baby Boomer generation would fall under the auspices of an elderly driver mandate for annual cognitive testing/licensure.
Apologies, I only took issue with downplaying being high and driving. Don’t get high and drive is all I’m saying here, and think your original comment seemed like you were saying it’s fine.
I’m totally with you on the elderly, you ought to need to renew you licence with a test when you get older. Because yeah, cars are deadly a f.
First anecdote:
I’m convinced driving stoned is still a problem (though I understand my experiences may be an outlier);
My friend used to drive stoned regularly, and while in the car with him he failed to notice traffic lights and stop signs. These are mistakes he didn’t make while sober.
Caveat: he was an inexperienced driver at the time, so he probably hadn’t developed intuitive driving habits, so being stoned meant he needed to manually assess every action.
Second anecdote:
I feel that driving drunk is so bad, not necessarily because of distraction or motor control (though once sufficiently drunk, these are absolutely an issue)
I feel the most dangerous part about driving drunk is the overconfidence which comes with it. People are much more likely to take risks while drunk. Conversely, people who are stoned are paranoid, so they’re locked in and focused on not looking like they’re driving inebriated.
This is yet another reason we desperately need good public transit. We all get old. Why do we have to choose between endangering other people’s lives and participating in society?
Because the auto industry paid lobbyists for decades to prevent the spread of local and national rail and tram lines?
Sorry, that’s kind of an oblique answer, the direct answer is money. A few extraordinarily wealthy people made a few more people rich by sacrificing what is right and good for America, with what is convenient and enriching for them. And now all our urban areas are designed for cars instead of people, which makes them shitty and inhospitable.
As a society, we would understand better, if more of us had the ability and desire to see how other industrialized nations live, but instead we just ramrod “American exceptionalism” until lil Johnny thinks his patch of Iowa, or Alabama, or Texas or wherever is equal to, or superior to anywhere else. All without ever having to leave the state, at all. I mean, what if they don’t have FOOD there?
Strictly speaking, most of the American Midwest doesn’t have any food at all. They grow hard unappetizing corn to feed animals and for ethanol.
What do you think of this?
https://www.bmj.com/content/344/bmj.e536
Results We selected nine studies in the review and meta-analysis. Driving under the influence of cannabis was associated with a significantly increased risk of motor vehicle collisions compared with unimpaired driving (odds ratio 1.92 (95% confidence interval 1.35 to 2.73); P=0.0003); we noted heterogeneity among the individual study effects (I2=81). Collision risk estimates were higher in case-control studies (2.79 (1.23 to 6.33); P=0.01) and studies of fatal collisions (2.10 (1.31 to 3.36); P=0.002) than in culpability studies (1.65 (1.11 to 2.46); P=0.07) and studies of non-fatal collisions (1.74 (0.88 to 3.46); P=0.11).
Conclusions Acute cannabis consumption is associated with an increased risk of a motor vehicle crash, especially for fatal collisions. This information could be used as the basis for campaigns against drug impaired driving, developing regional or national policies to control acute drug use while driving, and raising public awareness.
Sci-hub link: https://sci-hub.se/https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.e536
Per your source, it states ACUTE cannabis consumption is dangerous. But the OP is using cannabis chronically which greatly impacts its effects on them.
Just like someone using an acute dose of tramadol will likely be impaired, but a person chronically on tramadol won’t be impaired. We have studies on neurons that back this up - for opioids/opiates, that’s orexin neurons, and for cannabis, it’s endocannabinoid receptors.
Trust the experts!
Field sobriety tests are about as accurate as Tarot readings.
In most jurisdictions, the police can arrest you for refusing. Some experts say that if you’re sober, it’s better to refuse and be arrested, and then find it in court.
Refusing a breathalyzer is expensive though thanks to implied consent. The ticket for that is a ton of points.
What? You have to pay for the blood test if you refuse the breath analyzer? Everyday I learn something new about the US and everyday I’m shocked about it.
Not sure if you have to pay for the blood test (it wouldn’t surprise me), but part of driving on a public road is consenting to a breathalyzer test. They do need a warrant to draw your blood against your will, but they may bully the hospital into doing it anyway. Refusing to take one is a crime that in combination with any other violation can get your license suspended.
It may be worth going that route if you are marginally over the limit and a few hours would sober you up.
It’s 100% what to do.
Let them arrest you on suspicion. The cost of the lawyer will be less than the DUI fines and lost income due to all of it.
“No thank you, officer. If that means I am under arrest then I am under arrest and would like to invoke my 5th amendment right at this time. I will not be answering any further questions this evening.”
🤐
If I refuse a field sobriety test and request s breathalyzer or blood test instead, would I still be arrested?
Stoned folks will drive straighter than an arrow at slower speeds. They are safer than an asswipe glued to their Galaxy or iPhone.
They are safer than an asswipe glued to their Galaxy or iPhone.
The amount of people I see visibly fucking with their phones while driving (often at high speed) is really unsettling. In my day to day driving, I’m far more concerned about people on their phones than I am people stoned. They represent different hazards, but stoned drivers tend to be much more predictable.
