September 27, 2024, Durham, NC – iRT is dedicated to preventing distracted and impaired driving and helping drivers, prevention professionals, and community members protect themselves and others on the road. Plan My Ride is iRT’s interactive, multimedia, eLearning program developed with and for young drivers to teach safe driving skills to prevent distracted and impaired driving. Unlike other safe driving educational programs, Plan My Ride uses a science-backed and theory-driven approach to change behavior by teaching concrete, practical strategies to avoid impaired and distracted driving, and providing opportunities for young drivers to practice the skills they have learned in 360-degree virtual scenarios. The program is accessible on mobile devices and computers to meet teens where they are.
This article is the fifth in a series of articles describing how each lesson of the Plan My Ride program was strategically designed to help young drivers learn important information and strategies to prevent distracted and impaired driving.
Plan My Ride Lesson 5: Plan to Avoid Driving High
With the increase of legalization of recreational cannabis use in the United States, the number of impaired drivers on the road may be increasing and putting drivers and passengers at risk. In fact, the legalization of recreational cannabis use was found to be associated with a 6.5% increase in injury vehicle crash rates and a 2.3% increase in fatal crashes.1
Young drivers, in particular, are at risk for substance-impaired driving. SAMHSA’s 2018 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) showed that drivers aged 21-25 years reported driving under the influence of marijuana more than any other age group, followed by drivers aged 16-20 years.2
The goals of Lesson 5 of Plan My Ride are to teach young people about the dangers of driving while high and ways they can avoid it, so they can make safe, responsible decisions.
Learning the impacts of marijuana on health and driving skills.
Lesson 5 contains basic information about marijuana that is important for drivers to know. For example, young drivers learn about the differences between tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD), including that CBD does not cause impairment while THC does.
Young drivers receive information about how marijuana may affect their brain and health. They learn that at a young age, their brain is sensitive to damage from marijuana and that marijuana can damage their lungs, making it more difficult to breathe. The lesson discusses how marijuana may cause increased heart rate, drowsiness, depression, anxiety, increased appetite, and disorientation. Young drivers also learn that these effects can significantly impact their social and academic lives.
Importantly, young drivers learn that consuming marijuana by smoking, vaping, or dabbing may cause impairment more quickly than by consuming edible forms of marijuana. They also learn that impairment begins quickly and can last for several hours and that alcohol consumption can amplify the impacts of marijuana on the brain.
Expanding upon what they have learned, young drivers discover how specific driving skills are impacted after marijuana use. They learn that driving while using marijuana may cause them to have difficulty paying attention, worsened lane control, slower reaction times, and poor speed control. The lesson explains that when combined, lowered inhibitions, distorted sense of time, and loss of coordination from marijuana use can make driving extremely unsafe.
A main goal of the lesson is to challenge young drivers’ harmful beliefs about marijuana use and driving. Young drivers learn that only 4.7% of their peers report using marijuana and driving and that many of their peers disapprove of using marijuana and driving. Young drivers may be less likely to drive while high if they believe their peers do not approve of it.
Learning the laws related to marijuana use and driving.
In this lesson, drivers learn that driving under the influence of marijuana is illegal in every state and that Drug Recognition Experts (DREs) are law enforcement officers that have received specialized training to recognize different types of drug impairment in drivers.
Lesson 5 contains activities that allow drivers to see what might happen if they were pulled over by a law enforcement officer for impairment. They also receive information about the different types of tests that DREs use and signs they look for to detect impairment.
Identifying strategies to avoid marijuana use and driving.
In Lesson 5, young drivers identify strategies that they can use before and during their drive to avoid driving while high. For example, drivers learn about different types of transportation they can plan to use as an alternative to driving if they have used marijuana. The lesson contains an activity allowing young drivers to practice identifying someone they know that they could ask for a ride if they have used marijuana as well as ways that they could contact that person for a ride.
Young drivers learn that they should never consume marijuana during their drive. The lesson explains that a driver can be arrested both for driving while high and for possession of marijuana if they are using marijuana while driving.
Lesson 5 concludes with a brief knowledge-check quiz to test drivers’ knowledge of the safe driving strategies they learned throughout the lesson. The knowledge-check quiz is designed to promote reflection and retention of information within the program in learners. The number of correct and incorrect answers to the knowledge-check quiz questions can be viewed by teachers or other program administrators to determine if additional instruction or follow-up training is needed to build mastery of the knowledge taught in the program.
If you are interested in offering the Plan My Ride program to young drivers to prevent substance-impaired driving, visit https://planmyride.net/ to learn more and get started.
- Farmer, C. M., Monfort, S. S., & Woods, A. N. (2022). Changes in Traffic Crash Rates After Legalization of Marijuana: Results by Crash Severity. Journal of studies on alcohol and drugs, 83(4), 494–501. https://doi.org/10.15288/jsad.2022.83.494
- Azofeifa, A., Rexach-Guzmán, B. D., Hagemeyer, A. N., Rudd, R. A., & Sauber-Schatz, E. K. Driving Under the Influence of Marijuana and Illicit Drugs Among Persons Aged ≥16 Years — United States, 2018. (2019) MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2019; 68:1153–1157. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm6850a1.