Nearly 33% of grads have ridden with impaired driver

Nearly one-third of high school graduates have ridden in a vehicle with a driver who was under the influence of pot, alcohol or another substance, according to a study by researchers at the National Institutes of Health and other institutions.

The authors analyzed a seven-year study of more than 2,700 U.S. adolescents, starting at grade 10. The researchers found during the first two years after high school graduation, 23 percent of young adults had ridden with a marijuana-impaired driver at least once, while 20 percent had ridden with an alcoholimpaired driver, and 6 percent had ridden with a driver impaired by glue or solvents or harder, illicit drugs, such as amphetamines, opioids, cocaine.

Those numbers weren’t shocking to Pam Mautte, director of the Alliance for Prevention and Wellness at BHCare, which provides substance abuse prevention and education throughout New Haven County.

Riding with an impaired driver “does happen sometimes, especially among students who don’t always make the right decisions,” Mautte said.

“They might think they’re going to get in trouble if they call someone else for a ride, or they don’t think it’s that big a deal.”

She said a 2016 study conducted by the Alliance among 2,500 middle and

high school students in the lower Naugatuck Valley showed nearly 10 percent of those surveyed had ridden with a driver under the influence of drugs or alcohol, and that 2.4 percent had themselves driven while under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

The authors of the NIHfunded study noted that having ridden with an impaired driver in the past was linked to a higher risk of driving while impaired and of riding with an impaired driver in the future.

Other factors that increased the risk for riding with an impaired driver were living alone and not attending a four-year college. For young adults in

the study who attended a four-year college, living on campus increased their risk of riding with an impaired driver.

Mautte said the research shows the need for more education, particularly when it comes to discouraging kids from riding with people under the influence of marijuana.

She said efforts to legalize the drug for recreational purposes might have led some young people to think it isn’t that impairing. That is an unfortunate contrast, Mautte said, to some of the progress prevention and addiction specialists have made in educating children about alcohol.

“I think we have gotten kids to understand that drinking and driving is bad,” she said.

Dean Rohrer / Newsart Almost one-third of high school graduates have ridden in a vehicle with a driver who was under the influence of pot, alcohol or another substance, according to a study by the National Institutes of Health and other institutions.