Even with so many ride-sharing services out there, there will always be people driving intoxicated, no matter the dangers it can cause. Now a new report says that driving under the influence of other substances could now be a bigger threat than drunk driving.
*According to a study conducted by the Governors Highway Safety Association, drugged driving has gone up 16% in the last decade. Apparently drinking and driving has gone down in the last decade, but reportedly 44% of drivers who had fatal crashes in 2016 were on drugs at the time. Back in 2006, only 28% of drivers had died under the influence of substances other than alcohol.
*As an executive for the Governors Highway Safety Association told The Fix, “Too many people operate under the false belief that marijuana or opioids don’t impair their ability to drive, or even that these drugs make them safer drivers. Busting this myth requires states to expand their impaired driving campaigns to include marijuana and opioids along with alcohol to show drivers that impairment is impairment, regardless of substance.”
*This data is not exact because as a Highway Traffic Safety Administration source says, “It’s impossible to understand the full scope of the drugged driving problem because many drivers who are arrested or involved in crashes, even those who are killed, are not tested for drugs. Drivers who are drug-positive may not necessarily be impaired.” (The Fix also tells us that “just over 50% of fatally injured drivers were tested for drugs or booze after they died.”)
*A source for the AAA added, “With alcohol, we have 30 years of research looking at the relationship between how much alcohol is in a person’s blood and the odds they will cause a traffic crash. For drugs, that relationship is not known.”