Do drunk drivers killed more than guns driver#
“I never understood how we’d pass a law without first understanding the impact better,” said Barbara Deckert, whose fiancée, Ron Edwards, was killed in 2015 in a collision with a driver who tested positive for marijuana use below the legal limit and charged only with careless driving. State law does not require coroners to test deceased drivers specifically for marijuana use in fatal wrecks - some do and some don’t - and many police agencies say they don’t pursue cannabinoid tests of a surviving driver whose blood alcohol level is already high enough to charge them with a crime. Colorado transportation and public safety officials, however, say the rising number of pot-related traffic fatalities cannot be definitively linked to legalized marijuana.Īnd the numbers probably are even higher. The trends coincide with the legalization of recreational marijuana in Colorado that began with adult use in late 2012, followed by sales in 2014. Last year, all of the drivers who survived and tested positive for marijuana use had the drug at levels that indicated use within a few hours of being tested, according to the Colorado Department of Transportation, which compiles information for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Fatality Analysis Reporting System. Levels were not as elevated in earlier years. Nearly a dozen in 2016 had levels five times the amount allowed by law, and one was at 22 times the limit. Increasingly potent levels of marijuana were found in positive-testing drivers who died in crashes in Front Range counties, according to coroner data since 2013 compiled by The Denver Post. A Denver Post analysis of the data and coroner reports provides the most comprehensive look yet into whether roads in the state have become more dangerous since the drug’s legalization. The number of drivers involved in fatal crashes in Colorado who tested positive for marijuana has risen sharply each year since 2013, more than doubling in that time, federal and state data show. Digital Replica Edition Home Page Close Menu
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