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Mothers Against Drunk Driving

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MADD logo

Mothers Against Drunk Driving, or MADD, is a single-issue non-profit victims' rights organization in the United States and Canada. It campaigns to eliminate drunk driving. MADD has approximately 600 chapters and 2 million members/supporters.[1]

Aims

Generally MADD favors:

  • Strict policy in a variety of areas, including an illegal blood alcohol content of .08 or lower and using stronger sanctions for DWI offenders, including mandatory jail sentences, treatment for alcoholism and other alcohol abuse issues, ignition interlock devices,[2] and license suspensions
  • Helping victims of drunk driving
  • Maintaining the legal drinking age at 21 years[3][4]


In 2002, MADD announced an "Eight-Point Plan". This comprised:

  1. Resuscitate the nation's efforts to prevent impaired driving.
  2. Increase the enforcement of driving while intoxicated (DWI) and driving under the influence (DUI) laws, especially the use of frequent, highly publicized sobriety checkpoints.
  3. Enact primary enforcement seat belt laws in all states.
  4. Create tougher, more comprehensive sanctions geared toward higher-risk drivers.
  5. Develop a dedicated National Traffic Safety Fund.
  6. Reduce underage drinking.
  7. Increase beer excise taxes to the same level as those for spirits.
  8. Reinvigorate court monitoring programs.[5]

History

Candy Lightner was the organizer and founding president of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD). On May 3, 1980, Lightner’s 13-year-old daughter, Cari, was killed by a drunken hit-and-run driver as she walked down a suburban street in California. "I promised myself on the day of Cari’s death that I would fight to make this needless homicide count for something positive in the years ahead," Candy Lightner later wrote. She founded MADD in May 1980.[6]

1982

MADD served as a member on the Presidential Commission on Drunk Driving.[6]

MADD is instrumental in Congress passing H.R. 6170, a bill to promote alcohol traffic safety and to update the National Driver Register. The bill had been known as the "Howard-Barnes bill" after its two principal sponsors, Representatives James J. Howard and Michael D. Barnes. It cleared both Houses of Congress by voice vote, and was signed into law by the President on October 25, 1982, as Public Law 97-364.[6]

1983

A television movie about Lightner resulted in publicity for the group, which grew rapidly.[7]

In the early 1980s, the group managed to attract attention from the United States Congress. At a time when alcohol consumption laws varied greatly by state, New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg was a notable early supporter. Lautenberg took exception to the fact that youth in New Jersey could easily travel into New York to purchase alcoholic beverages, thereby circumventing New Jersey's law restricting consumption to those 21-years-old and over.[8]

1984

The group had its greatest success with the enactment of a 1984 federal law that required states to raise the minimum legal age for purchase and possession (but not the drinking age) to 21 or lose federal highway funding. After the United States Supreme Court upheld the law in the 1987 case of South Dakota v. Dole, every state complied despite its possible unconstitutionality.

1985

Candy Lightner, the founder of MADD, leaves the organization due to disagreeing with its changing goals and the neo-prohibitionist direction it starts to take.

1988

A drunk driver traveling the wrong way on Interstate 71 in Kentucky caused a head-on collision with a school bus. 27 people died and dozens more were injured in the ensuing fire. The Carrollton bus disaster in 1988 was one of the worst in U.S. history. In the aftermath, several parents of the victims became actively involved in MADD, and one, Karolyn Nunnallee, became its national president.

1990

MADD introduced its "20 by 2000" plan to reduce the proportion of traffic fatalities that are alcohol-related 20 percent by the year 2000. This goal was accomplished three years early, in 1997 [9]. That same year, MADD Canada was founded.[10]

1991

MADD released its first "Rating the States" report, grading the states in their progress against drunk driving. "Rating the States" has been released four times since then.[11]

1999

MADD’s National Board of Directors unanimously voted to change the organization’s mission statement to include the prevention of underage drinking.[12]

2006

In a November 2006 press release, MADD launched its Campaign to Eliminate Drunk Driving: this is a four-point plan to completely eliminate drunk driving in the United States using a combination of current technology (such as alcohol ignition interlock devices), new technology in smart cars, law enforcement, and grass roots activism.[13]

A very lengthy PSA involving a baby crying was perhaps one of the most infamous PSAs of all time because it claims that the baby is related to a young single mother who died in a alcohol-related accident.

Activities and impact

Drunk Driving Laws

MADD has been heavily involved in lobbying to reduce the legal blood alcohol limit from BAC .10 to BAC .08.[citation needed] In 2000, this standard was passed by Congress and by 2005, every state had a law enforcing a .08 BAC limit.[6] MADD Canada has recently called for a maximum legal BAC of .05.[14] Although several MADD leaders have supported a lower limit,[15] MADD U.S. has not officially called for a legal limit of .05.

MADD has successfully advocated, and continues to advocate, the enactment of laws for more strict and severe punishment of offenders of laws against driving under the influence, and drinking and driving.[6]

Declines in drunk driving deaths

MADD has helped popularize the use of designated drivers.[16][17]

The death rate from alcohol-related traffic accidents has declined since the 1980s. According to statistics from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)[18], alcohol related deaths per year have declined from 26,173 in 1982 to 16,885 in 2005. MADD has argued that the group's efforts have brought about this decrease, because alcohol-related fatalities declined more than did non-alcohol-related fatalities.[citation needed]

However, NHTSA's definition of "alcohol-related" deaths includes all deaths on U.S. highways involving drunk drivers, drunk victims, or both. In 2001, for example, the NHTSA's Fatality Analysis Reporting System estimated an annual total of 17,448 alcohol-related deaths. The NHTSA estimates for that year attributed only about 5,000 of those deaths to sober drivers, passengers, or pedestrians killed by drunk drivers.[19]

In 1999, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reviewed the NHTSA figures widely cited by MADD and concluded that they "raised methodological concerns calling their conclusions into question".([20], p2) The statistics, the GAO report said, "fall short of providing conclusive evidence that .08% BAC laws were, by themselves, responsible for reductions in alcohol related fatalities."([20], p23)

Minimum drinking age laws

MADD argues that, given that the brain does not stop developing until the early 20s, alcohol consumption retards brain development and harms the parts of the brain responsible for judgment and memory [21]. MADD also frequently cites NHTSA data as proof that a high drinking age has saved 22,798 lives since 1975 by reducing the number of fatalities involving underage drinking drivers[22].

Criticisms

MADD's focus and Candy Lightner's departure

MADD's founder, Candy Lightner, left the organization in 1985 and has since gone on to criticize the group as "neo-prohibitionist."MADD "has become far more neo-prohibitionist than I had ever wanted or envisioned … I didn’t start MADD to deal with alcohol. I started MADD to deal with the issue of drunk driving".[23]

Libertarian writer Radley Balko argues, "In fairness, MADD deserves credit for raising awareness of the dangers of driving while intoxicated. It was almost certainly MADD's dogged efforts to spark public debate that affected the drop in fatalities since 1980, when Candy Lightner founded the group after her daughter was killed by a drunk driver. But MADD is at heart a bureaucracy-- a big one. It boasts an annual budget of $45 million, $12 million of which pays for salaries, pensions and benefits. Bureaucracies don't change easily, even when the problems they were created to address change."[24]

Under-21 drinking

Some critics claim that MADD has shifted in emphasis from preventing DUI deaths and injuries to preventing underage alcohol use, and that this is undermining the organization's original goal, because MADD's leadership has stated that it's more important to stop drinking than it is to stop drunk driving fatalities. For example, the president of MADD, Glynn Byrch, wrote in a letter to the editor of the Washington Post:

Taking away a teenager's car keys and replacing them with a beer may prevent death and injury on the road, but it sends a dangerous message to teenagers that it's okay to break the law.[25]

In 2004, John McCardell, Jr. wrote in a The New York Times opinion piece that "the 21-year-old drinking age is bad social policy and terrible law" that has made the college drinking problem far worse.[26]

Retired sociologist David J. Hanson questions the effectiveness and relevance of MADD's stance that minors should not drink alcohol. Hanson argues that such policies might encourage underage and reckless drinking, since enforcement of a minimum drinking age might render it difficult to assist and educate younger people in making responsible judgments about alcohol consumption. Hanson notes that American youth drink at a higher rate than their European counterparts, who live under less restrictive consumption laws.[27] Hanson also argues that a minimum drinking age encourages some younger people to drink, enacting their contempt for a law they feel is unjust, and that it would therefore be safer to have them drinking legally in supervised environments.

According to Hanson, "research on the drinking age has not been able to verify a cause-and-effect relationship between the law and alcohol use or abuse." Hanson further notes, "Many studies show no relationship between the two variables while others report that some alcohol-related fatalities have shifted from the 18-20 age group to the 21-24 age group. When it comes to the effects of the drinking age, the most we can say is that the jury is still out."[27]

Civil liberty implications

Balko writes, "In its eight-point plan to 'jump-start the stalled war on drunk driving,' MADD advocates the use of highly publicized but random roadblocks to find drivers who have been drinking. Even setting aside the civil liberties implications, these checkpoints do little to get dangerous drunks off the road. Rather, they instill fear in people who have a glass of wine with dinner, a beer at a ballgame or a toast at a retirement party."[24]

MADD writes that “opponents of sobriety checkpoints tend to be those who drink and drive frequently and are concerned about being caught”.[28]

Breath alcohol ignition interlock devices

Main article: Ignition interlock device

According to some reports, MADD has proposed that Breath alcohol ignition interlock devices should be installed in all new cars. "Ultimately, the group said yesterday, it wants so-called alcohol interlock devices factory-installed in all new cars. "The main reason why people continue to drive drunk today is because they can," MADD president Glynn Birch said at a news teleconference yesterday from Washington, D.C."[29]

Sarah Longwell, a spokeswoman for the American Beverage Institute writes, "This interlock campaign is not about eliminating drunk driving, it is about eliminating all moderate drinking prior to driving. The 40 million Americans who drink and drive responsibly should be outraged." She continues, "Many states have laws that set the presumptive level of intoxication at .05% and you can't adjust your interlock depending on which state you're driving in. Moreover, once you factor in liability issues and sharing vehicles with underage drivers you have pushed the preset limit down to about .02%. It will be a de facto zero tolerance policy."[30]

Brzezinski argues that the policy assumes that citizens are guilty of drunkenness and requires them to prove themselves innocent not only before they drive but repeatedly while they drive.[31]

Victim impact panels

MADD promotes the use of victim impact panels (VIPs), in which judges require DWI offenders to hear victims or relatives of victims of drunk driving crashes relate their stories. MADD received $3,749,000 in 2004 from VIP fees. Some states in the United States, such as Massachusetts, permit victims of all crimes, including drunk driving accidents, to give "victim impact statements" prior to sentencing so that judges and prosecutors can consider the impact on victims in deciding on an appropriate sentence to recommend or impose. "The presentations are often emotional, detailed, and graphic, and focus on the tragic negative consequences of DWI and alcohol-related crashes."[32] According to the John Howard Society, some studies have shown that permitting victims to make statements and to give testimony is psychologically beneficial to them and aids in their recovery and in their satisfaction with the criminal justice system.[33] However, a New Mexico study suggested, "These results indicate that Victim Impact Panel experiences have desired effects immediately post intervention. However, after an extended period, VIP participants had higher rates of DWI arrests than non-VIP participants. The interaction between offender status and VIP experience suggests that VIP interventions are inappropriate for multiple offenders. Even though VIPs are not meant to be confrontational, participants may perceive them to be so. Consequently, these results may be similar to those in treatment outcomes studies where confrontational therapist styles result in higher client drinking."[32]

Alleged conflict of interest

Balko criticizes MADD for not advocating higher excise taxes on distilled spirits, even though it campaigns for higher excise taxes for beer. He writes, "Interestingly, MADD refrains from calling for an added tax on distilled spirits, an industry that the organization has partnered with on various drunk driving awareness projects."[24] MADD writes, "Currently, the federal excise tax is $.05 per can of beer, $.04 for a glass of wine and $.12 for a shot of distilled spirits, which all contain about the same amount of alcohol."[5] Point 7 of MADD's 8-Point Plan is to "Increase beer excise taxes to equal the current excise tax on distilled spirits".[34]

High fundraising costs

In December 2001, Worth magazine listed MADD as one of its "100 best charities".[6] However, in 2005 the American Institute of Philanthropy noted that MADD categorizes much of its fundraising expenses as "educational expenses", and gave MADD a poor efficiency rating for its high fundraising and management cost.[35] Charity Navigator rates MADD as "needing improvement".[36]

  • "Drunks Against Mad Mothers", or DAMM, is a spoof countermovement seen on T-shirts and bumper stickers. The recent popularity of the expression may have come from James Hetfield of Metallica, and Slash formerly of Guns N' Roses, who were once pictured in such T-shirts.
  • Defunct skateboard magazine Big Brother once contained an article titled "MADD - Mastering the Art of Drunk Driving", written by Dave Carnie. It listed steps to avoid being caught while driving under the influence of alcohol and ways to avoid being arrested when pulled over.
  • N.W.A. featured MADD in one of their songs called "Don't Drink That Wine". The lyrics were supposedly opposing of drinking, however MADD was explained as an acronym of "Motherfuckers Against Drunk Driving".

See also

Presidents of MADD

References

  1. ^ MADD Milestones 2000
  2. ^ Ignition Interlock - Issue Brief
  3. ^ MADD Online: Under 21
  4. ^ MADD's Positions on Youth
  5. ^ a b MADD's Eight-Point Plan for Refocusing the Nation's Attention on Preventing Impaired Driving
  6. ^ a b c d e f MADD Milestones
  7. ^ M.A.D.D.: Mothers Against Drunk Drivers
  8. ^ "21" turns 20, MADD Online; published in DRIVEN magazine, Spring 2004
  9. ^ MADD Milestones, 1995
  10. ^ MADD Canada: Learn More
  11. ^ Rating The States 2002 - Report Card
  12. ^ Why has MADD changed its mission statement?
  13. ^ MADD Announces National Campaign to Eliminate Drunk Driving MADD Online Press Release; November 20, 2006
  14. ^ Criminal Code 0.05% BAC law will reduce impaired driving in Canada
  15. ^ "http://www.activistcash.com/organization_quotes.cfm/oid/17 Mothers Against Drunk Driving," ActivistCash.com
  16. ^ Designate a Driver
  17. ^ Every Child Deserves a Designated Driver
  18. ^ "Total Traffic Fatalities vs. Alcohol Related Traffic Fatalities - 1982-2005," MADD Online; load date: November 17, 2006
  19. ^ Vartabedian, R. (2002). "A Spirited Debate Over DUI Laws". Los Angeles Times, December 30, p. A1.
  20. ^ a b United States General Accounting Office HIGHWAY SAFETY: Effectiveness of State .08 Blood Alcohol Laws
  21. ^ http://www.madd.org/stats/4561
  22. ^ http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/pdf/nrd-30/NCSA/TSF2003/809774.pdf
  23. ^ Bresnahan, S. (2002). "MADD struggles to remain relevant." Washington Times, August 6.
  24. ^ a b c Balko, R. (2002). "Targeting the Social Drinker Is Just MADD". Cato Institute, December 9.
  25. ^ "Birch, G. R. (2005). "Addressing Life's Perilous Pleasures". Washington Post, "Letters to the Editor", August 15.
  26. ^ McCardell, Jr., J. (2004). "What Your College President Didn't Tell You". New York Times, September 13.
  27. ^ a b Government Attacks Drinking with Junk Science by David J. Hanson, Ph.D. and Matt Walcoff
  28. ^ MADD Online: Sobriety Checkpoints: Facts & Myths
  29. ^ "Incantalupo, T. (2006). "MADD: Device key to keep drinkers off road". Newsday, November 21.
  30. ^ American Beverage Institute. (2006). "MADD Interlock Campaign Targets Responsible Social Drinkers". press release, November 21.
  31. ^ Brzezinski, P. C. (2006). "Drunk Until Proven Innocent"" Harvard Crimson, November 21.
  32. ^ a b "A Randomized Trial of Victim Impact Panels’ DWI Deterrence Effectiveness," W. G. Woodall, H. Delaney, E. Rogers, & D. R. Wheeler; Center on Alcoholism, Substance Abuse, and Addictions (CASAA), University of New Mexico
  33. ^ Victum Impact Statements—John Howard Society of Alberta, 1997
  34. ^ New 8-Point Plan To Jumpstart Stalled War On Drunk Driving
  35. ^ O'Donnell, J. (2005). "MADD enters 25th year with change on its mind" USA Today, September 28.
  36. ^ Charity Navigator Rating - Mothers Against Drunk Driving
  37. ^ MADD National Presidents: 1980 to Present
  38. ^ Immediate Past President: Wendy Hamilton
  39. ^ MADD National President, Glynn Birch
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