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Comment by colechristensen | Hacker News Reader

Is the pro-thc crowd really so focused that they would prefer impared drivers be untestable?

You're missing the point that the war on drugs is racist, oppressive, expensive and counterproductive. Adding technology does not improve any aspect of that.

FWIW I do not think driving high is safe at all, but I don't think it's a serious problem either (by the numbers).

Except your defensive "war on drugs" reaction is not really applicable here, as this product is being developed in the context of an environment where cannabis consumption is 100% legal (Canada).

Actually it's still applicable regardless of legality... that doesn't change police profiling and would still adversely affect minority groups. So instead of more people of color getting arrested for marijuana possession they get arrested for marijuana dui

Racial profiling is still applicable/relevant in another form, yes. But that's a different thing from 'war on drugs' per se.

Legalization has taken away the police's ability to target for consumption, and removed their ability to ruin people's lives for it. That's huge. And the gov't will now be providing a way for people to strike old possession crimes from their record, apparently.

Legalization does take that ability away, and to some extent this sort of enables it. The simple solution is don't drive under the influence and you will have no issues, but the arbitrary nature of these tests and what happens in real life leave me feeling less than confident this would play out fairly.

How about they test for actual impairment before legally declaring you impaired?

This would actually be an easy technical solution, if laws could be passed to allow it. Basically a driving simulator with a handful of reasonable surprises. If you avoid them you’re declared not impaired.

Any reasonable device of this kind would fail a nonzero perccentage of sober drivers and pass a nonzero percentage of intoxicated drivers. And not just because of noise -- some people drive worse sober than others do high. So don't hold your breath waiting for laws to allow it.

I thought about this a bit, and here's how I imagine it would work (based on how my state works currently):

1. You turn 16. You drive on the simulator - if you pass, you do a real drive with a human tester.

2. In 5 years when you renew your license, you go on the simulator again. If you pass, you get to renew your license. No human-in-car test required.

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The advantages:

- This covers things we can't currently test for:

  - Marijuana
  - Spice and unknown drugs
  - Sleep deprivation
  - Deterioration due to age (afraid to bring this up, but it's an issue)

- It's exact - there is no interpretation by a person.

- It's an actual impairment/ability test. Rather than putting a number on how much {x} you consumed - it measures what matters.

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For accessibility issues, traditional driving tests (and blood tests for impairment) would have to be used. If your vision doesn't allow you to test on the simulator - you take a physical driving test with a person. Simulator tests can't be used for impairment.

Other interesting ideas:

- Insurance rates based on your score in the simulator (not sure if this would be fair, or could be abused - but thought it was an interesting idea).

- We could have data for how your driving ability degrades with age.

- It should maybe be codified that equipment changes (new simulators, etc.) are not allowed between a test and impairment test. So the state would need to keep old equipment around for 5 years for migration.

> Any reasonable device of this kind would fail a nonzero perccentage of sober drivers and pass a nonzero percentage of intoxicated drivers. And not just because of noise -- some people drive worse sober than others do high. So don't hold your breath waiting for laws to allow it.

Yeah I agree that people will take issue with that. I personally don't care what someone did 15 minutes before getting into their car, so long as they can safely drive.

Anyway, I thought this was fun to think about. It seems like a really nice solution. I'd love to hear some more reasons why it wouldn't work!

But if the whole point is road safety and fewer accidents then those sober drivers should fail.

Is it really an issue in reality though?

I seem to recall reading that almost all cases of accidents where the driver tested positive for cannabis, there was another drug involved - usually alcohol.

To be clear, I'm not saying it's OK to drive under the influence of any psychoactive drug - it's plainly not. But I worry that legalised cannabis is going to be demonised by people with something to sell, and about the motivations of the sellers.

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