True.. being an asshole is also an option.

I'd missed that option.

Sometimes an accident is just an accident. Sometimes there's just not enough evidence to determine who (if anyone) is at fault. Sometimes you may suspect the driver was doing something other than driving, but you can't prove it.

However, generally if you hit someone after drifting out of your lane, you'll be charged.

Yep, actually. He is exempted from the law that makes typing while driving negligenmce per se.

All that particular law means is that if anyone other than a cop is typing while driving, no further discussion is required, it *IS* negligent.

Absent that law, the cop is still required to drive with due care. We cannot take his typing while driving as necessarily being negligent but we CAN take swerving into the bike lane and running someone over as evidence of negligence.

Just because there's no specific law against popping corn while driving doesn't mean you wouldn't get charged with negligence if you did it (somehow).

I believe the industry prefers 'venting with flame'.

He's lucky he wasn't charged with getting blood on the officer's car.

It was on the BBC news this morning, which probably counts as more reliable than 4chan. Most interesting was the claim by one of the women involved that the photos had been deleted. If this is true, then it would be a great example of the fact that just because something is 'deleted' in the cloud doesn't mean that malicious people can't get at it in the future...

If I'm going to report errors in a map, I'd rather do so with a map that releases its data under a license that allows reuse. Since such a map already exists and doesn't have the errors in Google Maps, I don't see much incentive. Google can pull the data from there if they want. This is actually one case where Microsoft has been a bit nicer: they allowed OSM to trace their satellite images to improve maps. Google Maps, in contrast, is very protective over their data.

Mars as the next step is a stupid idea. And that NASA also keeps suggest it as a next step proves to me how unworthy NASA is of funding. Same whenever they keep doing stupid studies on humans spending long periods in confined areas (they can always ask the nuclear submariners about it).

The true next step for anyone serious in making actual progress in space tech is to build a space station with artificial gravity (tethers+counterweights or other).

Once you have that you can test various animals (rats, food fish, humans) at Earth and Mars "g" concurrently to see how well they hold up for months in space.

And if you succeed in making that tech practical and cheaper it means you don't actually have to go to Mars - you can colonize the asteroids.

There's no actually much benefit going to Mars in the next few decades. The "g" is wrong, the pressure is wrong - you can't really use the tracts of land for farming without effectively building a "space station" on Mars (pressurization, shielding etc) - so there's little advantage over a space station with the disadvantage of not being able to pick your "g".

Not sure what post you think you're replying to, but the quoted line didn't appear in my post...

Yes. You will absolutely remember every detail of the explosion for the rest of your life.

Fortunately, it is part of my agenda AND I recognize that proper statistical analysis can point the way while junk statistics are better suited to hidden agendas.

So, were the second group perfectly psychologically healthy before they started smoking so much? Perhaps they were the few who were on the road to going postal one day but by the grace of THC they are able to at least live peaceful lives?

I have no doubt that chronic heavy use is bad for you. I suspect but cannot prove that at least some of the people who fall into that pattern had an underlying problem in the first place that they are self-medicating with varying success.

It wouldn't be too surprising if like alcohol, some people should avoid THC for their own good.

Given NHTSA's sloppy reasoning and screwy statistics WRT alcohol, they aren't a particularly good source of information.

An elderly man (a teetotaler) has a heart attack while driving and collides with a restaurant that serves alcohol. Fortunately, it is closed at the time so the only fatality is the driver. According to NHTSA's definitions, it is an alcohol related traffic fatality.

All of the stats you cite are such that no reasonable conclusion can be drawn. For example,

First, that's a pretty wide swing, can't they narrow it down if they have actual data? Answer, no because they extrapolated the data from a small (possibly cherry picked) sample.

Of that 4 to 14 percent, how many were currently high? You test positive for THC long after the high is gone.

What percent of drivers not involved in an accident tested positive for THC (or would have if anyone cared to test)?

Of that 4 to 14 percent, how many were concurrently drunk?

For the 3,000 Australians, were they at fault or were they 'at fault' because police found a roach in the ash tray and so decided they must have been at fault (quite common). I hear a question being begged.

Meanwhile, none of that has a single thing to do with overdose.