A tragic crash on a Colorado highway has once again put the spotlight on a growing but poorly tracked public safety crisis in the United States — drug-impaired driving.

In September 2024, two state transportation workers, Nathan Jones and Trent Umberger, were replacing a roadside sign along U.S. Highway 6 in western Colorado when a Jeep Grand Cherokee veered off the road and struck them. Both workers were killed, along with a passenger inside the SUV.

Investigators later found that the driver, 59-year-old Patrick Sneddon, had oxycodone in his system and THC — the psychoactive compound in cannabis — at levels six times higher than Colorado’s presumed impairment threshold. Sneddon has since pleaded guilty to multiple charges, including vehicular homicide, and is serving a 30-year prison sentence.

For the victims’ families, the loss has been devastating.

“Our four children are completely crushed without their Dad,” Trent Umberger’s wife, Kristine, said in a victim impact statement. “We have lost our ability to live life like we used to.”

While alcohol-related road deaths have long been monitored across the country, experts say the U.S. still lacks a reliable nationwide system to track crashes caused by drugs — or combinations of drugs and alcohol.

That gap is becoming increasingly worrying at a time when the opioid crisis continues, marijuana laws are being relaxed across many states, and psychedelic drugs are being decriminalized in parts of the country.

Unlike alcohol, where blood alcohol content provides a widely accepted measure of impairment, proving drug impairment is far more complicated. Some substances can remain detectable in the body for days or even weeks after use, making it difficult to determine whether a person was actually impaired at the time of a crash.

Colorado law, for instance, presumes impairment if THC levels exceed five nanograms per liter of blood. But legal experts argue that this threshold is not as scientifically established as alcohol limits.

Despite these challenges, experts warn that the problem is likely far bigger than official data suggests.

In Mesa County, Colorado — where the fatal crash occurred — local coroner data paints a striking picture. Between 2017 and 2024, about one-third of traffic deaths involved alcohol alone. But when drugs were included, nearly half of all fatal crashes involved drivers impaired by alcohol, drugs, or both.

“If you want to solve a problem, you need to understand the problem,” said Jana Price of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). “If you only know alcohol is present, you miss the bigger picture.”

Research from the NTSB has already shown that drug use among drivers involved in crashes is alarmingly common. A 2022 analysis found that more than a quarter of drivers killed in crashes tested positive for multiple substances, including cocaine, antidepressants, and sedatives.

The same study also revealed major inconsistencies in testing practices across the country. Only four U.S. states and Washington, D.C., tested more than 60% of fatally injured drivers for drugs in 2020.

Federal agencies have attempted to improve surveillance systems, including pilot projects involving trauma centers and medical examiners. In California, a statewide monitoring system found that 44% of drivers admitted to emergency rooms after crashes had at least one potentially impairing substance in their blood.

Experts say such findings should serve as a wake-up call.

“If people hear that nearly half of crash victims had impairing substances in their system, it changes the conversation,” said toxicology researcher James Chenoweth from the University of California-Davis.

However, progress has slowed sharply in recent years due to staffing shortages and funding uncertainty.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), which is responsible for road safety programs, has reportedly lost significant numbers of researchers and impaired-driving specialists following federal workforce cuts and employee departures.

Former officials say research teams studying impaired driving have shrunk dramatically, making it harder to develop national databases and improve enforcement strategies.

Meanwhile, billions of dollars allocated under previous infrastructure laws for crash-data modernization remain partially unused, adding to concerns that the U.S. is falling behind in understanding the true scale of drugged driving.

Safety experts warn that without accurate data, lawmakers and health agencies may struggle to design effective prevention policies.

As cannabis legalization expands and prescription drug misuse continues, they say the issue can no longer be treated as secondary to alcohol-impaired driving.

For families like the Umbergers, the consequences are already painfully real — and irreversible.