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A Belgian driver killed a teenage cyclist and walked away scot-free -- and then sued the kid's parents for €8000 for "damage to his car" [Article in Dutch] (archive.ph)
submitted 3 weeks ago by to c/fuckcars@lemmy.world
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(edited title to correct that this happened in Belgium, not the Netherlands)

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[–] 28 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (11 children)

The driver is a piece of shit, but what is the legal limit for marijuana, and how is the level determined?

Because thc stay in your system, 14 days for blood tests, 30 for pee tests, and like 90 for hair tests, as I recall, and there is no test to see if you are high now, you can test 100x above the legal limit despite having taken zero thc in days in fact.

Legal limits in legal states in the US are around 4 ng/ml, an ifitestimally low amount. Before legalization, any amount, despite false positives as high as 40 percent at levels labeled 1 ng/ml, (they round up if less.)

Edit: I looked it up, they use a different metric than the US ng/ml, they use micrograms/liter, of which their limit is 3 for thc while driving.

Testing is done with roadside saliva test, followed by a blood test for actionable information. Saliva test purportedly can tell if it's been used within 3 days. I didn't look at false positives or anything yet.

But the laws are dishonest bullshit.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 weeks ago

    Belgium's minimum limit is a third of surrounding countries. So 4 times the legal limit would only be 33% above the legal minimum limit in the Netherlands and Germany.

    The minimum limit doesn't imply any sort of intoxication though. It is the amount where usage of the drug becomes proven in a legal context. This of course means that none of these drug tests prove driving while intoxicated as you can easily get a positive test while being sober.

    I personally already had multiple positive tests while driving sober. It's an awful system that punishes drug users for their drug use and not for any DUI. The fact that they focus more on the test than actually talking about stuff like his speech and mental state when police arrived on the scene shows a lot. They just want to punish the guy as hard as possible and make him look like a criminal.

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  • [–] -2 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (9 children)

    What gives you the idea there wouldn't be a test to see how high you are at the time of the accident? You're taken to the station, they call a doctor who comes over at any time of the day, draws blood and they determine the amount of THC in ng per mL of blood serum or plasma. Legal thresholds are based on that measure as well.

    Belgium has a threshold of 1ng/mL of plasma. If you've been a heavy, daily user and your blood shows detectable levels of THC (which it totally does, yes) 7 days after, you can't drive, simple as that - that's how the law works and the fault is on you.

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  • [–] 26 points 3 weeks ago

    What gives you the idea there wouldn't be a test to see how high you are at the time of the accident?

    I dunno, maybe the part where

    If you've been a heavy, daily user and your blood shows detectable levels of THC (which it totally does, yes) 7 days after, you can't drive, simple as that - that's how the law works and the fault is on you.

    If I can be stone cold sober for 7 days and fail the test, your test has absolutely no fucking clue if I'm actually high.

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  • [–] 15 points 3 weeks ago

    That you don't know that they can't tell if you are high right now, shows that you have lived a sheltered and blessed life for one thing, and also that you speak confidently of things you know nothing about.

    It's common knowledge, I'm not trading sources to argue objective fact, I get enough of that in politics.

    As to the process, yeah no shit that's how everyone does it, US included, except we send it to state police crime labs that then further lie about it. You must be taking their testimony and not that of objective fact.

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  • [–] 19 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

    7 days after, you can't drive

    Well that's simply insane. Imagine getting a dui because of a glass of wine you had a week ago. Sounds like you argued his point for him. It isn't a reliable test.

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  • [+] -11 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

    If alcohol still influences your driving after a week, the yes, you should absolutely be getting a dui

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  • [–] 11 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (2 children)

    Ah yes, you smoke and then can't drive at all for a week. That's totally a well written law. /s

    That "proof" should be laughed out of any court. It doesn't prove you were under the influence at the time. At all.

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  • [–] 6 points 3 weeks ago

    The issue is that smoking marijuana does impair driving, meaning you shouldn't drive. The law needs some kind of proof that doesn't rely on a time machine, so they test your body. Your body can't really tell you when the thc entered your body, so you get two options:

    • The test can still prove you were under the influence at some recent-ish moment, so any sufficient amount in your blood means you can't drive.
    • The test can't prove it's recent enough for you to have been impaired while driving, so it can't be used as proof, which effectively means you could never be convicted of being under the influence (meaning it's unenforceable).

    The former negatively impacts marijuana users who won't be able to drive for some time. The latter means people under the influence could drive and due to their impairment hit and kill someone.

    Somewhat obviously, the lawmakers have decided that blocking some people from driving is better than letting someone under the influence drive a speedy death machine. So the law doesn't care whether you were actually impaired; it was in your system, so you're not allowed to drive.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 weeks ago

    No, the law is not ideal, and yes, I do find the implications questionable as well. Some people could end up not being able to drive for multiple weeks.

    However, that was the trade off that had to be made. People want weed to be legal, which it absolutely should be. Let's not forget this thread started out with outrage about a guy whon ran over a kid. Now, there are no tests that offer insights into a shorter, more recent time window of consumption, so how are we going to resolve the question if that driver was driving under the influence?

    The law made a compromise, that, according to studies, mostly affects heavy users that consume THC daily, and yes, for those people, the law currently does not represent an ideal resolution. But that doesn't even apply to all people who smoke or otherwise consume weed, and it can be resolved by the introduction of better tests without rewriting the law while providing the necessary framework for legalization.

    I'd prefer for weed to be legal and not being able to drive for a week than to be arrested, treated like a rapist by cops and then to be dragged to court for the possession of miniscule amounts of THC, which was the previous state.

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