As a motorcyclist I am exposed to the joy of the smells of the environment......hedgerows,cut grass , Sunday Bar -B- Q s etc etc
What I am also suddenly incredibly aware of is the smells coming from cars with windows open.........
The stink of SKUNK !
I am amazed at the number of passing cars leaving a trail of dope behind them and even more amazed that when streaming through lines of cars in London that one in ten is being driven by some twat with a joint on the go.
FFS ....this is a million times worse than somebody on a phone and amazingly seems ten times more common - if you follow the idiot you can clearly see the erratic danger of their driving.
This is a much more serious problem than the authorities realise .
Comments
There were a bunch of what appeared to be 13 year olds in the doorway smoking the strongest skunk I’ve ever smelled. Didn’t give a damn. They weren’t sharing, each had their own massive spliffs.
Staff couldn’t care less, thought this was normal perfectly acceptable behaviour for a Greg’s. Thought my reaction was hilarious.
Maybe it’s me. Maybe this is normal, and I’m just an old man shouting at clouds.
On another note, not being a fan of crap pastries, I ate at a small Italian restaurant in Shepherd’s Bush (Bocconi). Just chanced it
I had a lovely plate of beautifully cooked pasta for the price of a crappy supermarket sandwich meal deal (or Greg’s rubbish).
Tremendous value for money.
I don't mind the drug -taking but it's lunacy when driving a car
"A couple won't hurt, mate, you won't get caught!"
The idea that it's not getting caught that worries me seemed totally alien to them (it's more the fact that I wouldn't trust myself to be safe, while a bit tired, after a couple of beers).
I'm not locked in here with you, you are locked in here with me.
I don't think drugs and driving should mix. But the above simply isn't correct. The biggest US study - "after adjusting for age, gender, race and alcohol use, drivers who tested positive for marijuana were no more likely to crash than those who had not used any drugs or alcohol prior to driving". The latest UK study in 2010 - "[studies show] failure to implicate cannabis consumption as an accident risk factor". Basically there is no conclusive proof that being stoned makes you more dangerous, perhaps because stoned people know they are stoned (and therefore drive more slowly/carefully as a consequence). You could argue this either way, but a drug that encourages people to drive more slowly and carefully by definition cannot be dangerous in the conventional sense.
Drunk people can't drive properly but don't give a shit. Because they're drunk.
Conversely, mobile phone use has been proven to cause driving impairment - this is an excellent study regarding using social media while driving, which shows half a standard deviation impairment (that's a lot) and here's another one regarding talking on the phone - "overall there were clear costs to driving when drivers were engaged in cell phone conversations".
So cannabis isn't proven to make anyone dangerous on the roads, but phones are. Booze is off the scale of course.
I'm not anti-cannabis but I do think it should be consumed in private. Let's not forget Vincent Vega's sage words: "Yeah, it's legal, but it ain't a hundred percent legal. I mean you can't walk into a restaurant, roll a joint, and start puffin' away. You're only supposed to smoke in your home or certain designated places." As far as I'm concerned cannabis is far less harmful that alcohol which is everywhere. If you see stoners as alternatives to drunks they seem a lot less intimidating.
The talk of drink drivers is shocking. "Five and drive"? Fucking hell, that's insane. It boggles my mind that people would take such a risk with their own driving licence, career, and other people's safety just for a drink.
More seriously, it is a real problem and it needs to be tackled. I also can't believe some of the people I know who think it's OK to have a couple of drinks and drive - and this is in Scotland, where the limit is (rightly) lower. I admit that I would have had one (and only one) drink if I wasn't driving for an hour or two when I was younger, but that was until I did one of those online calculators which showed how much alcohol was likely to still be in your system after that time. Not over the limit, but enough that it worried me, and I now don't drink at all if I'm going to be driving later that day.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein