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DRUGGED DRIVING

Drugged Driving Is Just As Rampant As Drunk Driving

Accidents are often chalked up to drunk driving, but after autopsies have been performed, the reports will show about thirty percent of these bodies had large doses of drugs that impaired the driver’s judgment. The problem is that there is no roadside test for the average police department to check for drugs in the driver’s system.

Typically, they will arrest them for being suspected of drunken driving and get a judge to issue a court order for an entire workup on a blood sample. This is nothing new, but the public has not yet become aware of drugged driving. More on this website

People consuming narcotics like heroin, LSD, and marijuana have no idea what they are doing at times behind the wheel of a four thousand-pound car that now becomes an assault weapon with the capability of killing one or as many as a dozen people before crashing into a halt or being forced to stop by the police.

Someone hallucinating from drugs while driving is just as deadly as someone consuming a fifth of vodka before getting in their personal vehicle. Sadly, the driver is usually spared in these accidents, but the emotional loss caused by the victim’s families cannot be calculated.

Even more deadly are combinations of drugs and alcohol for vehicle operators; some will die from overdosing while driving and cause a crash, as there is not a living person behind the steering wheel.

The federal government and several car makers are working on technology that could possibly render vehicles immobile by sensing the chemicals that are coming out of the pores of their hands, but that is years away from becoming a reality. Making this type of technology a requirement for each vehicle will also have to be fought out in congress and at state-level legislatures.

People who kill others while under the influence of drugs are just as guilty as drunk drivers and are just as liable in civil court for wrongful death and personal injury lawsuits.

When technology finally catches up with drug users, the jails will start swelling by double, but for now, most of these people are only caught after the damage has been done to them and their victims.

Prevention through new inventions will hopefully curtail this whole area of criminal activity and prevent thousands of deaths each year in the future.