A study for real world risks based on a videogame, of all things?
Its impossible to directly map the experience of being behind the wheel in real life to a game, and the article doesn't even mention whether it's an actual simulation (like beam.NG), game-like (as in Assetto Corsa), or plain arcade fantasy (GTA, Need for Speed)
OBVIOUSLY people are gonna play games in a more fun/different way under the influence
They even admit that inhaled usage showed little to no consistency in driving difference
Bias disclaimer: I stopped consumption some time back
n=1 but I see tons of distracted driving, like relatedly people still text and talk and drive and... it mostly works out ok
So still probably ideal for people to aim to be perfectly sober and focused, but... we might end up "ok" in a lot of cases even if that ideal isn't achieved
Some weeks ago I saw a cop in her car and she was texting while rolling slowly toward the red traffic light (for sure, somehow understandable, but as a cop you shouldnt do those things in public?)
> Participants in the occasional and daily groups used their own cannabis at the doses they typically consume.
> “We didn’t tell people what to use because there’s a really big continuum of how people use and how they respond to that dosage,” Brooks-Russell said, explaining that they wanted these studies to reflect how people use cannabis outside of the lab.
Actually a really smart process decision - in past studies I’ve seen they always used a prescribed dose but having the participants choose makes a lot of sense
In Australia, the legal limit for Blood Alcohol Concentration when driving is 0.05. We are subject to roadside drug testing that checks for alcohol, methamphetamine, cannabis and cocaine. But not benzos, opiates or depressants, AFAIK. In almost all Australian states and territories, having a cannabis prescription is not a valid legal defence against loss of licence when a roadside test detects cannabis metabolites. The tests do not indicate impairment, only past use within the last few days. The Australian political class actively resists changing the law to be fair to medicinal cannabis patients.
If the system was really fair, it would perform a field sobriety test to prove impairment. Recognising that cannabis use only increases crash risk by the same amount as a legal BAC would be a good start.
I had to do so once and I found it very unpleasant. I was aware the whole time that I should not be driving. (I was also full of adrenaline and stress, which are confounding factors, but I'd driven under similarly stressed conditions and being high made it much more unpleasant.)
Haven’t gotten around to get myself a car yet, but I did have one of those electric scooters (2x900W motors I think, up to 50-60km/h depending on the climb) along with full gear (from moto shoes, gloves, and a helmet, to kevlar pants and an armored jacket). We had “roads” for bicycles and stuff like that, heavily isolated from regular traffic, and maybe having 1-2 people every 500-1000m.
I very often went on a baked circuit there, not as a “let’s get a faster lap time”, but more of a “clear my mind” type of ride. For things like this, I definitely prefer to be baked simply because of how it weirdly helped me disconnect from everything else going on in my life, focusing only on the about 15-20km of quiet, nature-adjacent, 95% empty, smooth bike road.
When I took the same scooter out to ride within traffic (akin to a motorbike, following all traffic rules aside from “vehicle registration” and “a license” because these weren’t and AFAIK still aren’t feasible for these), it was a whole different story. What riding with cannabis showed me was that you need to have trust in both yourself and your surroundings. But riding in traffic, sharing the road with people that aren’t even used to seeing motorbikes on the road that often (let alone electric scooters sharing the road with cars), being baked definitely made things more stressful than it would have needed to be.
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[ 5.0 ms ] story [ 30.1 ms ] threadA study for real world risks based on a videogame, of all things? Its impossible to directly map the experience of being behind the wheel in real life to a game, and the article doesn't even mention whether it's an actual simulation (like beam.NG), game-like (as in Assetto Corsa), or plain arcade fantasy (GTA, Need for Speed) OBVIOUSLY people are gonna play games in a more fun/different way under the influence They even admit that inhaled usage showed little to no consistency in driving difference Bias disclaimer: I stopped consumption some time back
So still probably ideal for people to aim to be perfectly sober and focused, but... we might end up "ok" in a lot of cases even if that ideal isn't achieved
- Stopping at green lights
- Dropping the doob between the seats
- The Ozium can rolling out of reach
- Driving thru multiple fast food venues in one trip
> “We didn’t tell people what to use because there’s a really big continuum of how people use and how they respond to that dosage,” Brooks-Russell said, explaining that they wanted these studies to reflect how people use cannabis outside of the lab.
Actually a really smart process decision - in past studies I’ve seen they always used a prescribed dose but having the participants choose makes a lot of sense
The article doesn't quantify accident risk, from what I can see.
The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP), however, actually has quantified the relative change in accident risk. [1]
The table in the linked document (N/A = not available):
In Australia, the legal limit for Blood Alcohol Concentration when driving is 0.05. We are subject to roadside drug testing that checks for alcohol, methamphetamine, cannabis and cocaine. But not benzos, opiates or depressants, AFAIK. In almost all Australian states and territories, having a cannabis prescription is not a valid legal defence against loss of licence when a roadside test detects cannabis metabolites. The tests do not indicate impairment, only past use within the last few days. The Australian political class actively resists changing the law to be fair to medicinal cannabis patients.If the system was really fair, it would perform a field sobriety test to prove impairment. Recognising that cannabis use only increases crash risk by the same amount as a legal BAC would be a good start.
[1] https://www1.racgp.org.au/getattachment/ef4cc327-723b-42c9-b...
I very often went on a baked circuit there, not as a “let’s get a faster lap time”, but more of a “clear my mind” type of ride. For things like this, I definitely prefer to be baked simply because of how it weirdly helped me disconnect from everything else going on in my life, focusing only on the about 15-20km of quiet, nature-adjacent, 95% empty, smooth bike road.
When I took the same scooter out to ride within traffic (akin to a motorbike, following all traffic rules aside from “vehicle registration” and “a license” because these weren’t and AFAIK still aren’t feasible for these), it was a whole different story. What riding with cannabis showed me was that you need to have trust in both yourself and your surroundings. But riding in traffic, sharing the road with people that aren’t even used to seeing motorbikes on the road that often (let alone electric scooters sharing the road with cars), being baked definitely made things more stressful than it would have needed to be.