交通死亡人数在4月20日下午4点20分之后增加 This is Scientific American - 60 - Second Science . I ' m Steve Mirsky . Tomorrow is April 20 th - 4 / 20. It ' s sometimes called a High Holiday .
Because for a lot of people , 4 / 20 is Marijuana Day . And for them it ' s kind of a tradition to start lighting up at 4 : 20 P . M . on 4 / 20.
Which led a couple of researchers in Canada to wonder if there was any evidence for an increase in traffic deaths related to the occasion . They got access to the United States National Highway Traffic Safety Administration ' s Fatality Analysis Reporting System .
Which tracks all public road accidents in which at least one person died . And they looked at the numbers on 4 / 20 from 4 : 20 P . M . through midnight . From 1992 through 2016.
They also examined traffic deaths related to accidents on the day one week earlier and the day one week later during the same hours . The result : a 12 percent increase in fatalities related to traffic accidents on 4 / 20 after 4 : 20 P . M . compared with the control dates .
And for drivers 20 and under the figure was much higher , more than a 30 percent increase in some states . The research is in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine .
Of course , this study does not prove that impaired driving caused by marijuana consumption was the cause of the higher death rate . For example , could be that drivers crashed while simply trying to light up .
Scientific American has long supported making it easier for researchers to study marijuana ' s medicinal effects as well as decriminalization in general . But we ' re still against driving while intoxicated - so if you ' re gonna be toking , keep those pistons from stroking .
The pistons in the engine . Of the car . Just don ' t drive . For Scientific American - 60 - Second Science . I ' m Steve Mirsky .
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