B. Carfree

An article in today's L.A. Times about intoxicated motorists contained the following factoid:
I must say that it sure seems like more than one in six drivers are impaired, but I guess there is no blood test for being a jerk.

A major point of the article was the fact that there are no real standards for what is too much impairment for marijuana users and how long the impairment lasts. If you have epilepsy you are not allowed to have a driver's license because of the risk your condition poses to the public. It seems like the same standard should apply to medical marijuana users.

full article: https://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...871,full.story

GraysonPeddie

Symptoms of Epilepsy

I hope I can help out those who don't know the symptoms in which epilepsy can cause.

Well, here's another one about signs and symptoms of marijuana.

Thoughts and prayers go out to the jogger.

Not to derail this thread, but I have a question. Shouldn't there be technology that should be able to detect drug use before starting a car? Sure, I think there is technology that detects alcohol in the driver's system, but sensors that detect pot and marijuana. Sure, that could be very obtrusive for those who keep drugs and alcohol off limits out of their system, but would the technology help improve safety for other sober drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists?

Ah, pardon me for going too far, though.

sudo bike

Or anyone who takes any other medical substance which may impair you, such as prescription drugs? Why should medical marijuana be treated any differently than other prescription drugs? I don't think the epilepsy comparison is nearly valid. An epileptic seizure can occur at any time* without warning, medical marijuana you must choose to take and drive. It should be treated no differently than driving under any other impairment.

*I believe even people suffering from epilepsy can drive providing they can show they have their epilepsy well under control. My uncle has it and drives, but he hasn't has a seizure in over 20 years.

Digital_Cowboy

Agreed, not too long ago I went to the ER out at the VA, because I had a slip and fall where I ended up landing on my U-bolt lock inside of my top bag. The doctor that I saw while in the ER had I gathered considered prescribing Vicodin for me. But took into account the fact that I ride a bike for transportation opted not to do so for my safety.

KD5NRH

Did he end up giving anything for the pain? I'm not particularly happy with the Norco they keep prescribing every time something happens, (hot flashes and dizzy spells are nearly as bad as the pain from most of the injuries I've had in the last few years) and I'd like to get them to switch to something that would work without rendering me effectively homebound every time. (If I can't ride for three hours after I take it, there's no way I'm going to try to drive for dive or six, and if my wife has to take me somewhere, we have to load up the infant and the toddler before we can go.)

B. Carfree

We recently lost a cyclist here in Lane County to a motorist who was taking prescription meds. The DA botched the case and didn't prove that the killer was taking more than the prescribed dosage, but that should not have been necessary. When the PDR or the container warns against operation heavy machinery, that should include a two ton motor vehicle. So, in answer to your question, I don't think people taking medications that are known to affect their ability to safely operate a motor vehicle should be allowed to drive. If the prescription is long-term then I think they should not be allowed to have a driver's license.

As far as the relationship between medical marijuana and other medicines, there is something fairly unique about MM. Its active substance is fat soluble, so it stays in the system for days after usage (and most MM patients I know rarely skip a day). At least one breakdown product of marijuana is itself psychoactive, so the intoxication is again prolonged.

If we live long enough, all of us will eventually get to the point where we can't safely drive a motor vehicle. It isn't fair for people who's health or skills have substantially declined to continue driving (and putting others at risk) just because they want to. If your eyesight is failing, you shouldn't be permitted to drive (this is honor code in my state, which is scary). If you require medical marijuana, you also shouldn't drive when you have any intoxicants in your system. As a side benefit, this would probably reduce the number of MM card holders to just those who truly need it and weed out the ones who just want a legal high. (Yes, that bad pun was intended.)

Digital_Cowboy

He gave me a couple of weeks supply of Ibuprofen of the 600mg size. To be taken every 6 hours as needed for pain.

And I agree with you, in that doctors, PA's, and nurse practitioners, are all to quick to prescribe everything from antibiotics to painkillers anytime someone walks in off of the street and asks for it. And then people turn around and wonder why we end up with people getting addicted to prescription drugs. And as a result we end up with so called "doctors" setting up "pill mills" to continue supplying those addicts with pills.

The really sad thing is that for those people who really need the "pill mills" because they don't have insurance are the ones who ultimately end up paying the price.

Yep, I can see how that can end up being a problem. A good question, is why start treating patients with a "cannon" when a "water gun" would be more appropriate.

sudo bike

I almost agree. I would say people who are under the influence of an impairing drug should not be able to drive, regardless of prescription. Just "taking it" (having a prescription), I don't think is enough. My Mom is regularly prescribed painkillers for her back, but she doesn't need to take them all of the time. Only on bad days. There's no reason she should be unable to drive on other days; her driving is not impaired, she poses no increased risk to anyone.

True, but the question isn't whether it's in your system, the question is whether your driving is being impaired. Same for alcohol... it's why you can still have a small amount in your system (in CA under .08 BAC) and not be ticketed. Or reversed, you can have under .08 and still get slapped with a DUI if it's impairing your driving.

I see no reason we can't do like we did before breathalysers: Give an impairment test, and if there's sufficient evidence to believe you are impaired, you get popped.

I disagree, and it's the same reason I disagree about zero tolerance BAC. Cough drops can set off a breathalyser - but I would wager most people don't suffer any measurable impairment to their driving because of it, which is what we are mainly concerned about here.

As an example, while I don't currently use marijuana or have a green card, I was considering it for some time for bouts of chronic insomnia I get every few weeks (I'm a shift worker). If I'm using it for one week out of the month, does that mean I shouldn't be able to drive at any time during the month because I might be loaded? I've known a lot of pretty heavy-use stoners... a whole helluva lot of them don't even smoke every day. Penalizing those who are not impaired because they have the ability to be impaired is a mistake, IMO.

Actually, I think we need to start ticketing impairment (maybe not a DUI, but some sort of penalty) independently of what's in your body. It shouldn't matter if you are stoned, drunk, sleep-deprived, or distracted; if your driving is impaired, it needs to be rectified.

spock

You might wanna reconsider using the word "intoxicant" when you talk about Marijuana. Cannabinoid Receptors are the most dense and the most populated receptors in our brains and our bodies.

It stays in our bodies because it fits. Other substances/medications leave our bodies sooner because our immune system wants them out. They are intoxicating.

rydabent

And then we have idiots in this country, mainly on the east and west coast that think we should legalize pot and other drugs. Thats just what cyclist need, more wacked out impared drivers on the road to run us down!

Chris516

Very well said.

The detail above about epilepsy is only partially true. I have had it since I was an infant. When I wanted to take a driving test about fifteen years ago, the state medical board said I had to be seizure free for six consecutive months. By the time I had gone six months without a seizure, I had come to a realization that, I feel safer on my bike, not for the benefit of other motorists. But because there are too many whackos' with a drivers license, that I would feel like I was more in danger. By travelling by bike I feel safer dealing with idiot motorists, than I would behind the wheel.

sudo bike

Yeah, watch out for all those drivers going 15 mph and stopping for 10 minutes at a stop sign.

atbman

Alcohol is legal, but you can still be done for DUI. And given that the percentage of people who use canabis in the US is higher than in Holland, where it is tolerated, perhaps the idiots might have a point. It would still be perfectly possible to prosecute people whose driving was impaired, even if drugs currently illegal ceased to be criminalised.

myrridin

Just remove the word motor from the phrase motor vehicle. Operating a bicycle on public thoroughfares while impaired is just as bad as a car, since either vehicle is capable of causing death/serious injury of oneself and others...

genec

While either vehicle is capable of causing death/injury, the likelihood of a bicycle doing so is vastly lower than that of a car doing so... simply based on the simple physics of mass times acceleration... of which the automobile has vastly more of... both mass and ability to accelerate.

Here is a bit of a thought problem... consider the sheer volume of automobiles on the US roads and the fact that they kill roughly 35,000-40,000 people annually... then compare that with the sheer volume of bicycles on the US roads and the deaths that can be attributed to bikes. (I think you might find 4-5 pedestrian deaths a year attributable to bikes). So doing this, which vehicle statistically ends up "deadlier?" (this is also an interesting twist on stats...)

Wiki shows 250844644 registered automobiles in the US in 2006... assume that there are 40K deaths from these vehicles... that gives you 1 death per 6271 MV.

Assume that regular bike users are 2% of the number of autos... 5016893 bikes. Assume 10 deaths caused by bikes... that means 1 death per 501689 bikes... Cars are far far deadlier... by a factor of 80.

Now I made quite a few assumptions in the calculations above... and my figures could easily be disputed... but even using this simple thought experiment, we can see that bikes are hardly "just as bad as a car."

myrridin

Don't play games with probabilities. The simple fact is that the probability of either mode causing a problem is astronomically small... Including cars. Yet such problems do occur. And simply adjust your statistics to take into account the vehicle miles traveled and you would find that bicycles accident rates are not that dissimilar to those of cars... So no significant statistical difference... In short your argument is self-serving... You know its always the other guy who is the problem...

The fact is accidents/injuries are a major justification for the traffic laws (which didn't happen until much later in the life of vehicles). As such they can and should apply equally no matter what mode the person chooses. Part of what makes the system work is that within reason everyone works on the same set of assumptions about what to expect the other idiot is going to do...

genec

Who is playing games with probabilities... I am merely pointing out the fact that by sheer numbers alone, and physics, a car is vastly more likely to cause more damage than a cyclist.

Heck a cyclist is nothing more than a pedestrian moving at 18MPH... how much harm can one do? Compare that to a 2 ton mass of metal moving at 40MPH.

Show me how and where a cyclist can be "just as bad as a car."

DeadheadSF

Instead of advocating even MORE LAWS restricting/removing even MORE FREEDOM, maybe we should determine a realistic "maximum" under which people can drive a vehicle while under influence of marijuana. There have already been a boatload of tests done on drivers who are using marijuana. Learn something about it before spouting off your fascist BS...

EDIT: Oh, and if, as the original quote said, the data is pulled from "random roadside checks" (Bill of Rights, where did you go?) and half of the "intoxicated" motorists were high, this doesn't mean a damn thing. The checks were random sweeps (bye, 4th and 5th amendments - we miss you), not accidents/crashes or traffic violations. The results of this "study" are useless...

myrridin

Cyclist hits and kills pedestrian... Motorist hits and kills a pedestrian... Both result in dead pedestrians. Both facts can easily be found to have occurred... The game playing is when you start to say the latter is more likely so we should treat it differently. The game is your assumption that one is more likely than the other. The simple fact is that both are relatively rare, yet we still choose to regulate one. The same arguments for regulating motorists can be equally applied to cyclists...

Here is just one additional example of cyclist causing death of pedestrian (beyond the op scenario) https://www.wfaa.com/news/local/Katy-...104252924.html

MacCruiskeen

[QUOTE=B. Carfree;12872431
I must say that it sure seems like more than one in six drivers are impaired, but I guess there is no blood test for being a jerk.

[/QUOTE]

The ones who aren't chemically impaired are probably chatting on a cellphone.

Seattle Forrest

Drinking alcohol is legal; drinking alcohol and then driving is not. Logic fail on rydabent's part.

People should be able to use marijuana if they want to listen to terrible music from the 1960s and '70s and eat too much iced cream. They should do it responsibly and not drive until they sober up.

My mother is 61, and uses the stuff with a doctor's prescription, to relieve pain. It really can't be that bad if my mom is using it.

genec

BTW your "one example" is of an event so rare that it is "BIG news."

Cyclist hits car... no one in car dies. Cyclist hits house or store, no one in house or store dies.

Motorist hits cyclist... cyclist dies. Motorist hits car, people die. Motorist hits house or store, people die.

There, see the difference... I hope that is simple enough for you. I can color code it if you like.

sudo bike

Obviously cyclists riding impaired on public roads should be busted. But I fail to see why a person operating a vehicle weighing under 30 lbs traveling at 15 mph should be painted with the same brush as one operating a vehicle weighing 2 tons and traveling at 40 mph. One obviously is capable of causing more harm than the other, and so should be held to a higher level of responsibility, just as we do truck drivers, bus drivers, pilots, etc; responsibility coupled to ability to do harm.

Truthfully, we should be promoting it. I'd much rather all the drunks were to ride home rather than drive. Don't you think we'd see a drop in DUI fatalities, especially bystanders?

genec

Exactly.

Basic physics alone proves this... the difference in mass and speed of a cyclist and bike verses an automobile simply proves that there is no way a cyclist can be "just as bad as a car."

The laws of some states quite readily acknowledge this... While you can get a "BWI" while drunk on a bike in CA, the fines are vastly lower than for DWI.

myrridin

Again we see a basic misunderstanding of statistics.

Cars are used for nearly all (>99%) of all miles traveled. So yes accidents involving cars are "more likely" to happen. What you'll don't seem to get is that even so, car caused fatalities are VERY RARE. Cycling represents far less than 1% of all of the vehicle miles traveled in this country and yet there are still fatalities caused by cyclists... Again very rare, but they still occur... Because both are very rare, and yet there proportion is very close to the same when adjusted by the number of vehicle miles traveled by each mode, there is NO STATISTICAL DIFFERENCE between the two. Because we are overly sensitive to risk we regulate one and therefore should regulate the other...


Now is that simple enough for you, or are you simply too stuck in your cars are evil and must be regulated and bikes are good and should be left alone mindset?

Oh, and btw, physics NEVER proves anything that is based upon human behavior and not the underlying physics of the situation. Accidents/deaths are always the result of human error, not the basic physics of the vehicle.