Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Drug Driving
This article is basically talking about the sever negative effects of driving under the influence of drugs. However this situation is more tricky then I personally anticipated because it is not only the use of illegal drugs that are causing these accidents but also through the abuse of prescription drugs as well. According to the article driving under the influence of drugs accounts for 33% of fatal accidents. Personally I find it difficult to come up with an idea to help prevent these accidents from happening. This is because people can still circumvent the responsibility of driving sober and could also accidentally overdose on a prescription drugs. The only way I see for these accidents to stop occurring is only if people think about their mental state before they get behind the wheel of a car and for the government to enact harsher punishments for those who get caught. What is your opinion on this? Do you think that their is a better way to stop these accidents from occurring?
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8 comments:
the article clearly stated that the drug test could not see when the drugs were ingested. maybe 33% of americans are regularly taking some kind of drug to help ease any aches or pains. I've popped a couple of tylinols and drove around police and so far I've never been pulled over for driving suspiciously. I think that in order for more strict laws to be enacted more testing should happen.
Didn't Immanuel already post this?
It's going to be difficult for law enforcement to minimize these accidents because so many people take drugs on a regular basis and have good reason for doing so. I think in order to stop this we are going to have to either change the effects on the body these drugs have or find an efficient way of identifying drugged drivers.
I agree with Cj. I personally think the better option would be to find a more efficient way of tracking down drugged drivers because I feel like this would be easier to do. it also would depend on what drugs we are talking about since drugs is an umbrella term.
Finding a way to handle drivers under the influence of drugs is trickier than it is to handle drivers under the influence of alcohol. Drivers under the influence of recreational drugs that they chose to take should be punished the same way that drunk drivers should be, because both exhibit poor choices and judgment. However, it is more difficult when the driver is under the influence of prescription drugs. There is always the possibility that a driver takes a medication for a health problem that affects their driving; for this reason, most doctors and medication labels caution against driving immediately after consumption. One can only hope that an effective way to test drivers for drugs is found soon.
I do believe that it is almost too difficult to identify drugged drivers. Maybe if the punishment was more severe, people will have less of an incentive to even get behind the wheel after taking even prescribed drugs.
@Chris: "The only way I see for these accidents to stop occurring is only if people think about their mental state before they get behind the wheel of a car." Ironically - and unfortunately - people often find themselves unable to think clearly when under the influence of drugs. So people can't really "think about their mental state" before driving. Hence the problem...
I recently heard about a car breathalyzer that mandates previous DUI offenders to breath into a breathalyzer on their car to test whether they had had any alcohol previous to getting into the car. If they passed, they could drive. And if alcohol was detected in their breath, they couldn't. I think this is a pretty cool idea that might actually work. Maybe we could somehow create a device for a similar purpose that would instead test for drug levels.
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