Is Marijuana Legalization Causing More Pedestrian Deaths?

Photo Credit: Global Panorama, CC SA 2.0

A recent article in the New York Times raises the question of whether marijuana is causing pedestrian deaths to increase:

Pedestrian deaths in traffic accidents have reached levels not seen in years, and a safety group has sought to explain why. It has identified several possible causes, like digital distractions and an increase in driving. Now it has added another: marijuana.

Over the first six months of 2017, pedestrian fatalities rose sharply from a year earlier in states that had legalized recreational marijuana, according to the Governors Highway Safety Association. In the rest of the country, such deaths declined.

“We are not making a definitive, cause-and-effect link to marijuana,” said Richard Retting, a traffic safety engineer at Sam Schwartz Consulting who was the author of the study. The data “is a marker for concern,” he added. “It may be a canary in a coal mine, an early indicator to address.”

Last year the Denver Post noted an increase in fatal accidents, and an increase in the number of drivers in those accidents testing positive for pot.

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. 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.

…

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.

The trends coincide with the legalization of recreational marijuana in Colorado that began with adult use in late 2012, followed by sales in 2014. Colorado transportation and public safety officials, however, say the rising number of pot-related traffic fatalities cannot be definitively linked to legalized marijuana.

…

The 2013-16 period saw a 40 percent increase in the number of all drivers involved in fatal crashes in Colorado, from 627 to 880, according to the NHTSA data. Those who tested positive for alcohol in fatal crashes from 2013 to 2015 — figures for 2016 were not available — grew 17 percent, from 129 to 151.

By contrast, the number of drivers who tested positive for marijuana use jumped 145 percent — from 47 in 2013 to 115 in 2016. During that time, the prevalence of testing drivers for marijuana use did not change appreciably, federal fatal-crash data show.

And the numbers probably are even higher.

I haven’t seen that much written in the urbanist press about this compared to other related safety issues. Even the folks who normally blow a sprocket at safety issues involving pedestrians have been strangely muted.

There’s no way that the urban crowd would accept “no definitive link” type defenses if it were something they were already opposed to (driving in general, for example). But if we really want to reduce auto-related fatalities – and we do – then we need to address impaired driving and be willing to be honest about how pot legalization may have factored into that.

from Aaron M. Renn
http://www.urbanophile.com/2018/03/15/is-marijuana-legalization-causing-more-pedestrian-deaths/