Just a personal view, but every single person I’ve ever seen drive under the influence of weed (including myself) was completely unfit to do so. I mean, just totally incapable. They tended to focus completely on one aspect----like keeping the car on the road----while ignoring their speed, rearview mirrors, etc. I’d rather get into a car with a drunk driver than a driver who’s smoked a few bowls.
Just a personal view, but every single person I’ve ever seen drive under the influence of weed (including myself) was completely unfit to do so. I mean, just totally incapable. They tended to focus completely on one aspect----like keeping the car on the road----while ignoring their speed, rearview mirrors, etc. I’d rather get into a car with a drunk driver than a driver who’s smoked a few bowls.
Just a personal view, but every single person I’ve ever seen drive under the influence of weed (including myself) was completely unfit to do so. I mean, just totally incapable. They tended to focus completely on one aspect----like keeping the car on the road----while ignoring their speed, rearview mirrors, etc. I’d rather get into a car with a drunk driver than a driver who’s smoked a few bowls.
What did you say before that?
If this was in response to my question,“does Freddie have any scientific evidence he can cite which backs up his claim?” (that “He most certainly drives better when he has recently indulged.”), you have shown no such evidence. The evidence, as I pointed out, shows that small amounts of THC may have no net effect on driving. There is no evidence to show that driving gets better. For example, from your link:
So…there are negative effects on driving, and drivers are often able to compensate, resulting in a net effect of zero. But nowhere has anyone shown that driving skills have improved.
Like I said, I’m sure Freddy thinks he is driving better, but he ain’t.
-mok
mok, this is from the first study I linked to :
So, it would stand to reason that if a driver is “cautious and self-critical” when stoned, but reckless and speeding when he’s sober, it might be beneficial to get stoned. Of course, you’d have to weigh that against a slightly reduced reaction time for the stoner. So, I guess it would depend on just how reckless a driver is when he’s sober and how much smoking calms him down.
Surely this varies from person to person, but it isn’t going out on a limb to suggest that a few people drive better stoned than sober. That doesn’t mean that they couldn’t drive just as good sober as they could stoned, but that they don’t.
Really, think of it this way. Most people who drive quickly and recklessly are aggressive or angry. Marijuana helps people not to feel aggressive and angry. Pretty simple.
Something like this might not make its way into the findings of a study, because I’d doubt that most people who drive like maniacs would continue to do so under supervision and while engaged in an experiment. Or crazy drivers could be underrepresented in the studies. Who knows?
Even when knowing full well that marijuana is only found in the systems (not even proving it caused the accidents) of 4% of drivers, while alcohol is implicated as a factor in over 1/3 of accidents? No offense, but your “personal view” is hardly grounded in reality.
neutron star, that is exactly why I asked for evidence. You have given me an opinion. You agree with me that none of these studies showed an overall improvement; rather, they showed no net effect, which is not an improvement. I stand by my assertion that there is no experimental, scientific evidence indicating any overall improvement in driving for anyone under the influence of THC. Yes, their confidence may improve, and they may be more cautious, but they aren’t driving any better.
-mok
You aren’t even reading my quotes right, let alone the studies. In my second post in this thread, I quoted a study stating “marijuana did not impair driving performance, but the subjects themselves perceived their driving performance as such.” That’s the opposite of “their confidence may improve.”
Aren’t driving any better compared to what? Compared to the way they actually drive when they’re late for work, or compared to the way they drive in a study, knowing full well that they are being closely monitored? The studies only measure the latter.
That’s clearly just because more people drink than smoke pot. How does that compare to the ratio of users of the two drugs? Or to the ratio of people who use the drugs and then drive?
mok, it seems you scare quite easily.
Not to be a pain, but cite, please? (Hell, an educated guess would suffice for me, but probably not for anyone else.) I ask because the usage of each is pretty even among folks I know, with alcohol having a slight lead. Obviously a small test group, but I doubt national usage numbers resemble the 4%/33% quoted above in car accidents.
Troy McClure SF, the ratio of “alcohol users” to “marijuana users” may very well be similar, but this survey (warning: PDF file) indicates that the frequency of consumption is very different. I couldn’t find a well-designed study for the U.S., but this Canadian survey indicates that 34.9% of all Canadians (age 15 and over) have had a drink in the past week. The same survey found that 7.4% of all Canadians (age 15 and over) have toked in the past year.
This indicates to me that the likelihood of finding a toker driving is very, very small compared to the likelihood of finding a drinker driving.
While I’d be skeptical, too, that doesn’t mean its not possible. Marijuana doesn’t “impair judgement” in the way alcohol does; if anything, he would think he was driving far worse than he really was.
Also, how’s he supposed to cite something so subjective?
Thirdly, why the wiseassey tone?
FWIW, those that get “out of their minds” after smoking are pretty much always inexperienced (or at least infrequent) users. The type who would commonly smoke and drive are daily smokers – the heads, as it were. Their high is nothing like the one you remember that one time you experimented with weed in college and couldn’t move for two hours.
Very good point, occ.
But I still don’t toke and drive. Main reason for that, apart from the fear of being pulled over and having the officer smell it on me, is that when I’m high, I notice details very clearly inside of my sphere of focus, but stuff outside that sphere is hazy to me. So I would be able to focus on what I was doing, but I might not be alert to what other drivers were doing.
Bleh this should be obvious.
When you are drunk, really drunk, you can’t even walk straight, how do you expect to drive a car? Probably because alcohol also affects decision making and makes it sound like a good idea even when it isn’t.
Now when erm… Fred has been smoking a few bowls, are these two major dangers even playing a role? Not unless Fred has been drinking.
Slowed reaction times are compensated for with more cautious driving, or even better the realization that one is simply too stoned to be driving. When you are under the influence of pot you still have to control to decide if you are too stoned or not, something that alcohol doesn’t have going for it. And I know this isn’t going to make some of you feel any better but many experienced marijuana users can handle driving just fine. If you are an experienced driver then you are using a lot of the required skills at a nearly unconsious level anyway.
Driving is hard to do when drunk even if you are experienced, and you are liable to be far more reckless. If you are stoned you more likely to worry about getting pulled over than in being adventurous. Stereotypes about stoners make it easy to picture them as irresponsible drivers but the actual effects, rather than the stereotypes, should be taken into consideration.
Hmmm… I really should consider using that preview button, sorry if I got a little incoherent there 
Or the fact that “Alchohol/Drugs and guns don’t mix”. Hey, if you aren’t supposed to be driving under the influence of it, you shouldn’t be handling a firearm under the influence of it either.
Geepers-
We don’t get those ads here in The Magic Kingdom, but…
Obviously doing pot and operating almost anything doesn’t really mix. Does anyone here say otherwise?
I suppose (correctly if I am wrong) you oppose the “tone” of the ads? I myslef hate the radio ads of AFRTS of some birthday part scene with the announcer intoning, “Little Julie was killed two hours later by a drunk driver.”
This hits below the belt, but of course it is true. Can we say the same bout these ads?
To get the real numbers, not only would you have to do a bit more math than that, but you’d also have to be able to channel the dead.
4% is the percentage of drivers with detectable marijuana in their systems. Marijuana is detectable for 1-4 weeks. It’s impossible to ascertain which drivers were actually stoned at the times of their accidents, and since these are fatality reports we’re talking about, we can’t exactly ask them.
Also, as I quoted in the first study, 60-80% of that 4% also had alcohol in their systems. So we can safely assume that well over half of the “pot-related deaths” involved drivers who may or may not have smoked marijuana before the accident, but were definitely intoxicated to some degree on alcohol, since, unlike the metabolites of THC, alcohol leaves your system when you sober up.
Taking this a little further, the NHTSA showed 36,254 automobile fatalities in 1994, the earliest year for which I can find data. The 4% figure comes from 1990-91. Do the math and you come up with 1450 fatalities. Now subtract the deaths in which alcohol played a factor. You get 290 to 580 people who smoked pot at some point in the two weeks prior to their accidents.
Considering that marijuana, while not as popular as alcohol, is still the most widely used illicit drug in the U.S., those numbers hardly make it sound like a serious problem.