High Way To Die

The driver has only had a couple of drinks and a pill, but he's dangerously impaired. How would you like to come along for the ride at 60 mph? Better still, how would you like to meet him head-on? Hello, I'm Jack McGaw. We're about to begin 5 days of road trials to find out how dangerous it is to drive and take drugs. Eight different subjects have been examined by a medical team, and in just a few minutes, one of them is going to climb into a computer-equipped National Research Council vehicle under the influence of either alcohol or alcohol in combination with marijuana, a tranquilizer, or a cold remedy. Our subjects are young students, all of them under 30, representing the most accident-prone group of drivers on the road today. They've all been driving for at least 2 years, and they're all familiar with power steering, power brakes, and automatic shift. Gary is the youngest at 19. He's just out of high school. Bonnie is 23 and now studying electrical engineering at university. Throughout this experiment, she complained that her hands felt numb from the drug she was taking. Jennifer just graduated from university with an arts degree. She's 24. To qualify for this first practical driving test of its kind, all our subjects were asked to admit in writing that they had smoked marijuana on a previous occasion. Bob is a 26-year-old theology student, and he brought the guitar along to shorten the long hours of waiting here in the middle of southeastern Ontario farm country. The bartender is Dr. Ian French, a biochemist and president of a large private laboratory. It takes a practiced hand to pour these drinks. They're for Robert, a 23-year-old fine arts student and our first driver. It's a blind study, so he doesn't know for sure whether he's getting vodka with the orange juice or just water. But in fact, this time it is vodka, precisely calculated to bring his blood alcohol level to 0.06 g percent. That's just below the level commonly believed to cause driving impairment. It's not a bad mix. Robert will have half an hour to drink up and an hour to wait before his driving test. This is cannabis or marijuana, grown, cut, and dried by the Canadian government's health department and released to this program for our driving experiment. Robert doesn't know it, again because it might influence the way he expects to drive, but today the marijuana he's getting has no drug in it. The active ingredient, tetrahydrocannabinol or THC, has been removed. He'll get the real stuff on some other run. Every subject drinks, smokes, and swallows a pill, but each is unaware of what's in them. The capsule Dr. French is handing Claude contains a small dose of the prescription tranquilizer Valium, believe it or not, the largest-selling single drug in the world. North Americans alone spend about $200 million a year on it. Claude is a 27-year-old French-Canadian arts student, and after about an hour's time, he'll be quite a different man as he climbs behind the wheel of our test car. And so the waiting begins, each member of the group taking a pill, smoking a joint, and drinking a couple of drinks, sometimes with drugs and sometimes without. All of them have taken the National Research Council car on a practice drive, so they all know what to expect as they set off down this 8-mile stretch of unopened highway 40 miles southeast of the Canadian capital of Ottawa. But now the cameras are in place, ready to record this television trial, a project designed and organized by a team of scientists, laboratory technicians, researchers, and statisticians, and supported by three government agencies. We spent several months here in the laboratory preparing for the road tests because before we could put anybody in a car, we had to know exactly how each of the drugs and drug combinations would affect a driver's reaction time. And that's what this computer-controlled stressalyzer does. This control unit sends out a programmed signal to people under the influence of the same drugs or drug combinations and measures how accurately they respond. These trials produced books of data to help us design the highway experiment and minimize the risk for our drivers. At 0.06, which is just a couple of drinks, remember, there is some impairment on the stressalyzer. It's against the law to drive at 0.08 or 0.1, but look what happens to impairment when a person takes a single dose of antihistamine, the sinus or hay fever remedy, with those two drinks. We get impairment equivalent to four or five drinks. 0.06 alcohol and a moderate amount of marijuana produces an even higher level of impairment, and the combination of alcohol and a tranquilizer pill results in even greater impairment equivalent to about five or six drinks. Dr. Eugene LeBlanc is our principal scientific consultant. Well, the stressalyzer data clearly show that at very modest levels of drug and alcohol, we produce very dramatic levels of impairment. The trouble is is that most such research is done in laboratories, and real driving has a much higher risk level than a driving in a laboratory. For example, a person driving in a laboratory who decides he doesn't want to participate any longer can just let go the wheel or the stick, and nothing much happens. Out on the driving test track, a person faces the problem of if he decides not to drive, he goes off into the bush, or if he brakes suddenly, he will move forward into the into the dashboard. Also, he experiences peripheral vision, lateral and forward acceleration, many things that we cannot mimic effectively in the laboratory. And ultimately, the data are interesting in the laboratory, but are the basis of social policy and education programs when they happen on the road. We're back at the starting point, and the drugs are beginning to take effect. The sequence of the runs is arranged so that any increased experience by the subjects won't be a factor in the final results. Each driver will be sent off sometime during the course of the experiment without any active drugs in their drinks, pill, or joint. And so we'll know how they handle the car and the hazards on the road cold sober. That way we can measure precisely how much their ability is impaired by alcohol alone or by the different drugs combined with alcohol. Robert is just a little high. Remember, he's only had a couple of drinks of vodka, bringing his blood alcohol level to 0.06 g percent. Now, let's see if he's impaired as the computer records how well he's steering the car, how much his speed varies, and how he's able to cope with distractions. Alison Smiley of the National Research Council of Canada accompanies every driver. She's in charge of programming and analyzing the data from the computer installed in the trunk. Robert's doing pretty well. His steering correction rate is just about the same with the vodka as it was when he drove the course without any drug at all. The solid line is his normal or ideal steering correction rate, and the dotted represents steering with alcohol, so it's a little looser. His speed is fairly constant, but like most of the others, he's driving a little more slowly than he was sober. He was a little tense when a car was sent down the opposing lane at 60 mph, and when a light on the dash was turned on to divide his attention, he turns it off faster than he did with no drugs. But that means he may be concentrating too much on the light and neglecting his steering. The impairing effects of the alcohol didn't really appear until he reached the chicane or pylon course, a carefully designed test of every motor skill he can muster. In the 60 mph stretch, he didn't have to put in much effort to drive reasonably well, but through the pylons, the task is tougher, and the demands on his ability are high. The required speed here is 25 mph. Robert stays at about 23, just about the same as when he was sober, but this time he's knocking down about four times as many cones as he did on the sober run. With just a couple of drinks of vodka, Robert almost loses control of the car. So, after a tense moment or two, he's made it well past the halfway mark. Well, your doctor gave you some, and your dealer gave you more, and you'll watch that white line melt as your foot goes to the floor. Well, you're bound to lose control of your senses and your soul when you ride that highway to die. When you ride that highway to die. Robert should be proud of that stop because the wheels are just a few inches off the white line, but we'll soon see what a rare performance it was. Do you think you're getting any idea? I don't know. I think there's a bit of vodka in here. I think I can feel it, but it's hard to taste. Well, I think Yes, I think that the the orange juice has got a little grapefruit taste, and you're getting uh have more bitter background, so you won't get much of a flavor of vodka. Particularly you because you're small, your dose is lower. So, the volume of vodka in the same volume of orange juice will be smaller than others. Good. Yeah. Well, we'll see what you like when you finish the three. Then we'll know. There is vodka in Jennifer's drinks. There was nothing but sugar in the pill she took. But the marijuana she smoked contained THC, which is a mood-modifying drug. And in just a moment, after the alcohol and the THC from the marijuana have been absorbed into her bloodstream, we'll see how well she can drive. All right. Help is all right. Now, Claude is high on alcohol at .06 and Valium, that popular tranquilizer that doctors often prescribe for restlessness or anxiety. As the computer is reactivated for this run, Claude tells the scientific staff he's sure he's stoned on marijuana. When in fact, there was no active drug in the cigarette he smoked. Neither the tranquilizer nor the alcohol by themselves would seriously impair his driving ability, if at all. But watch what happens. On his run with alcohol, he was making steering corrections over what could be considered a safe range. But when the alcohol is combined with a tranquilizer, steering effort is reduced by about a third, and he's weaving across the center line. A passing car could be only a few feet away, and of course, Claude in heavy traffic would be the sure cause of a head-on collision. He puts out the divided attention light even faster than he could on alcohol alone, probably because he's concentrating on the distraction and neglecting his steering. And again, this is what happens. Most of the others reacted in exactly the same way. All our data indicates that the alcohol and tranquilizer combination produces dangerous impairment, far greater than the legal impairment level, and probably equivalent to five or six drinks. At 60, Claude's speed was fairly constant, but in the pylon course, he slows down to 21, and that's 4 mph slower than he's supposed to drive. Because he's driving more slowly than he did on alcohol alone, he's knocking down fewer pylons on this run, but you'd be taking your chances meeting him on a corner. That skid into the gravel, four pylons got jammed underneath the front end of the car, and Claude's test is held up. Most of the cones are placed exactly 10 ft apart, leaving up to 2 ft on either side of the car. Claude was asked to move the car ahead a bit to free the cones underneath, but he chose to do it just as the research technician leaned under the front bumper. Our physician, Dr. Michael Beach, examines every member of the group after each run. He wants to know how they feel and how they think they performed. And it's all How do you feel? You still high? No. No, but It's very high. What? Good feeling? Oh, yeah. Okay. I want to talk to you, Claude, before before we uh let you go, eh? Sorry. He says when he when he's really stoned, he doesn't understand any English at all. Well, that's why No. This is when he's really uh you know, stoned, he doesn't understand It was just when he's drunk. When he's drunk, he uh you know, he understands English. He says he just didn't like the the act of driving, but he loved the the speed. Do you care about driving? Oh, yeah. Or you just sort of I'm going to pay attention. You're going to pay attention? That's interesting. Jennifer may think she's paying attention, and she may appear to be paying attention, but at 60 mph, her steering correction rate indicates her ability to control the car has been reduced substantially. Alcohol and marijuana cause over-steering with much wider corrections than without any drugs. Her speed is slower and less constant than it was without any drugs, and she was slow to switch off the divided attention light on the dashboard. When some of the other subjects were drugged with alcohol and marijuana, they were even slower than Jennifer, and a couple of them told Allison Smiley, sitting in the back seat of the car, that she was foolish to ride with them. In the pylon course, Jennifer is making the same excessive steering corrections, in effect, over-correcting her steering. She doesn't hit as many pylons as she did when she was sober, but that's partly because she's driving much more slowly. Actually, her performance here isn't typical at all. Most of the others turned in their worst cone scores on their alcohol and marijuana runs. But the fact is, even Jennifer isn't capable of controlling her speed or her steering nearly as well as she could cold sober. I think that I was more careful than ever. You slowed down? Eh? You think you slowed at the pylons? Oh, yeah. More cautious? No, I think I went about 25 seems usual, but I I don't know how many pylons I knocked down, but it seemed really easy. How about on the straightaway? Do you think you're staying fairly steady, or do you think you were wandering a bit? No, I felt steady. Steady. You still feel high? Yeah. Good? I feel like a cold shower. That's what you'd like to do? If you were at a party, would you go out now and and say you ran out of of liquor, would you go out and get some more alcohol now? Probably not. No? Would you go after some more pot? Or you think you've had what you want? If that's all there was, I think I'd be content. Quite content. Bob is high on alcohol and antihistamine. Again, he's only consumed a couple of moderate drinks, raising his blood alcohol content to just below the level presumed by the law to produce driving impairment. But the antihistamine puts him well into the danger zone, equivalent to about four or five drinks. He's correcting his steering in a far wider arc than normal. Actually, there appears to be less impairment on this drug combination here on the highway course than there was with our subjects in the lab. Body weight may make a difference. The two lightest subjects were severely impaired on it. In other words, some people can get dangerously impaired on alcohol and antihistamine, and some aren't affected at all. Through the pylon course, Bob knocks down only a few cones, but he's driving nearly 2 mph slower than he was on all his other runs. Pylons cost about $3 apiece, and they can be replaced. But any one of these steel-weighted plastic markers could represent another car, a dog, or a child. We were using every ounce of power the car could deliver to keep the computer in the trunk running and air-conditioned. But with all the shifting and vibration through the pylons, there were frequent technical breakdowns. Our attorney? Could you uh get a car and come down to just past the cones, please? We just had a power failure on the computer. Some of the most useful additional data came out of our cameras locked into position here at the side of the car and facing the driver. The computer proved all the drugs had a deleterious effect on driving ability, but the camera shows what errors the impairment caused. On this run, the car is up on the shoulder of the road, sending up a cloud of dust from the right rear wheel. Watch what happens as the driver tries, under the influence of a drug combination, to correct his steering. During the course of this experiment, the car drifted over the center line and onto the shoulder several times. Remember, each of the subjects has been instructed to pay full attention to the task of driving. There's no conversation with the researcher in the backseat, the radio is off, there's no massive flow of traffic. It's a brand new superhighway with no hills and clear markings, the weather is ideal, and it's broad daylight. Each subject drove the 8-mile course down and back only once on each of the five days, so the car traveled only about 640 miles in total. But over that distance, it knocked down a total of 547 pylons, damaging 75 of them beyond repair. It skidded onto the gravel at the pylon several times, and at the end of the course, it was never stopped accurately on the white line. On some of the runs, particularly on alcohol and marijuana, the front wheels were as much as 5 ft short and 5 ft over the stop line. But strangely, the most inaccurate stopping of all, on average, occurred on runs with only two drinks of vodka. Our findings about the effects of drug combinations on driving performance leave many questions unanswered. We're now laying out 5 tons of power cable and setting up 42,000-W TV lamps in order to illustrate one of the driving dimensions yet untested. Statisticians tell us the accident rate doubles at night because of reduced visibility and an increased number of distractions. And now some traffic safety officials are advocating that 16- and 17-year-old drivers be kept off the road after the sun goes down. The driver of this car hasn't had anything to drink or to smoke, and he hasn't taken any pills, and yet look what happens. He's so nervous, he comes to a dead stop right in the middle of the pylon course. You're most likely to take tranquilizers, antihistamine pills, or smoke marijuana at the end of the day when you're restless, stuffed up, or just want to have some fun. If you have just a couple of drinks on top of that, you're driving the highway to die. The important thing is is that we were able to produce these very meaningful disruptions in driving behavior with certainly what I view to be extremely modest pharmacological interventions. I mean, the amount of alcohol is equivalent to only a few drinks, and the doses of the drugs and the recreational marijuana were those that would be a modest dose, even a small dose, and two together have produced the kinds of disruptions which are bound to lead to accidents. We should bear in mind that these the probability of these kinds of things happening in the wide bulk of the population is very high. Well, this discovery must have profound implications for government agencies, for the medical profession, for drug manufacturers. Well, I think uh certainly that that we're going to have to alter, even in a simple-minded way, the kinds of warnings that we give people with prescription drugs and even over-the-counter preparations. Now, there already are warnings, but I think that their saliency could certainly be heightened. We also have to begin to educate people. I hope this film will make a a start in that direction as to how little an ingestion of drugs and alcohol you need in order to seriously impair your ability to perform in a motor vehicle. It doesn't take much imagination to see that when two cars pass on a highway at 60 mph, just a few feet from one another, it's pretty important that they stay on course. Nobody knows how many thousands of people die from the kinds of high you've seen in this program because coroners don't usually look for drug combinations when they're trying to find an explanation for a fatal accident. But we do know that almost every driver on the road today consumes alcohol at least in moderate amounts, and we know that the daily use of tranquilizers, marijuana, and antihistamine is increasing. And we know now how they can drive us right over the line. It's our highway to die, but it's a low way to go when you're flying too high and you're moving too slow. You got the devil to pay. You will pay him someday when you're out that highway to die. Who decides when it's over? Could it be it's up to you? Oh, it's up to you. It's our highway to die, but it's a low way to go when you're out the highway to die.