Safety First

TÂN'SI! HELLO! At CAA we’re all about safety for you and your family, whether it’s insurance for personal health, travel, properties and vehicles or a CAA Membership that provides CAA Rewards® savings, roadside assistance and peace of mind. But did you know that CAA is also recognized as a dedicated safety advocate? We own and operate several programs at the provincial CAA club and national levels to help keep Members and non-members safe through vital information on a wide range of issues — bike safety, driver safety, the CAA School Safety Patrol® program, school zone safety assessments, Air Passenger Rights, pedestrian safety, consumer education, the Slow Down Move Over legislation to protect tow truck operators and first responders, cannabis and driving, and a list of worst roads for the safety of all road users.

The program I’d like to focus on is cannabis and road safety. We’ve been following cannabis-impaired driving behaviours since 2015, from our participation in the Task Force on Cannabis Legalization and Regulation, government meetings and research studies at McGill University in 2018 to ongoing public education and awareness about the dangers of cannabis use and driving.

According to CAA polling, young Canadians are the most likely group to believe they are as good a driver or better when they’re high — shown by an increase of nearly 10 percent since 2021.

There are studies showing that smoking or vaping cannabis is associated with impaired driving performance, but there has been no research in Canada examining the influence of edibles on driving performance.

We know that young Canadians are consuming cannabis edibles more than they were a few years ago. The increased consumption of cannabis edibles, along with the lack of awareness and research, may lead to dangers on our roads. And we’ve already seen an increase in motor vehicle crashes involving young drivers who consume cannabis. To continue improving road safety, CAA has commissioned the first-ever study in Canada that will look at the effects cannabis edibles has on young drivers. Through a partnership with Dr. Alexander Crizzle — an associate professor and director of the Driving Research Simulation Laboratory at the University of Saskatchewan — we will examine the effects of cannabis-based edibles on cognitive health and simulated driving performance in young drivers. The results will be available through a national public education campaign to be launched this fall. CAA wants to see fewer people driving under the influence of cannabis edibles. Our goal is to ensure that cannabis-impaired driving doesn’t take generations to become socially unacceptable, like drunk driving. Please visit caask.ca/cannabisanddriving for further information.

Stay safe and take care.