How The Non-Profit Group Known as MADD Got Started and the Impact It Has Had on Drunk Driving Today
In May 1980 a beatuiful young teenaged girl was hit and killed from an intoxicated driver in a hit and run as she walked along a sidewalk on her way to a festival . In the grief of her daughter’s death , Candy Lightner immediately took action in trying to find more about the driver that took her daughter’s life in files at the DMV and information from a Las Vegas DUI attorney and Las Vegas DUI lawyer and if he was a habitual drunk driver. This started the cause that many are aware of today called MADD which stood for Mothers Against Drunk Driving.
With a enormous grief and anger over her daughter’s death, Candy Lightner along with her co-worker friend , Sue LeBron-Green wanted to change not only the laws that seemed ineffective in keeping drunk drivers off the road or from repeating their offense but also in changing the attitude of society that was quite different in the early 1980’s. Back then, driving after consuming alcoholic drinks was not considered a bad thing and something almost everyone did at one time or another . The mission to not only change laws but everyone’s attitude toward something that is considered acceptable was an uphill battle for this pair of Moms .
They started by going to politicians who seemed to be aware of the statistics but never did anything to change them. This mother had a compelling story to tell and rather than just tellit, she used crash site phtoographs of the victims that resulted from a drunk driver to try to have the statistics come to life. Not only were they fighting government but also the strong industries that were more focused on profit versus safety. They seemed like uphill battles but from their grief and passion these two women fought on and on and got many followers to join them in this crusade .
In just three years, they proved that their fight and their MADD group was making a dent with having traffic safety and victims rights laws passed. The more they fought , the more media attention they received and after just 4 years from when her daughter was killed , Candy Lightner’s MADD organization had 330 chapters in 47 states. Americans were sick of losing their relatives in fatal drunk driving crashes and this group seemed like the way to change it. In 1988, the biggest and worst drunk driving crash happened in Kentucky where 2 dozen young people were killed when their church bus was hit by a drunk driver and it was engulfed in flames. The media attention of this horrible event helped MADD’s fight to go on to change not only the legislation but the attitude that Americans had toward drinking and driving.
Another element that Mothers Against Drunk Driving felt strongly about was to have changed was the drinking age in America . They noticed that the states with younger drinking ages also had an increased number of drunk driving fatalities . Because of MADD, traffic fatalities have lowered from 30,000 in 1980 to less than 17,000 now .