Why madd has failed

In hope to raise awareness and not have her daughter die in vain — Candy so bravely took a stand… and people started to listen. There is just absolutely no reason to drive while under the influence and many people do repeatedly. This is why the laws are so stringent, as they should be; but people need to continue to band together a spread the word about the risks associated with driving under the influence and the consequences of finding oneself in need of a Minneapolis DWI Defense.

MADD is a nonprofit organization that helps those who have been directly affected by drunk drivers. They continuously try to shoot for stricter laws as well as prevent underage drinking. MADD continues to forge on and raise awareness and money about the dangers associated with excessive drinking and especially driving while intoxicated.

Many people may think that they know everything there is to know — yet, people continue to do it. Educating children at a younger age and continuing to push for stricter laws has proven to be extremely effective and MADD will not stop.

But MADD has now decided to go after social drinkers and to eliminate driving after drinking any amount of alcohol beverage. This change appears to reflect the influence of a growing neo-prohibitionist movement within MADD. The founding president of MADD, Candy Lightner, left in disgust from the organization that she herself created because of its change in goals. I started MADD to deal with the issue of drunk driving.

Lightner has emphasized the importance of distinguishing between alcohol and drinking on one hand and drunk driving on the other. Lightner has apparently put her finger on the problem when she says that if MADD really wants to save lives, it will go after the real problem drivers. Mothers Against Drunk Driving stigmatizes light or moderate alcohol consumption, even when it isn't associated with either being underage or driving.

For example:. Mothers Against Drunk Driving has clearly become not simply anti-drunk driving or even anti-impaired driving, but anti-alcohol. Unfortunately, Mothers Against Drunk Driving often uses junk science to promote its agenda. Department of Transportation had been unable to establish after 15 years of careful research.

Even after the General U. Accounting Office issued a report to Congress insisting that the Hingson claim was "unfounded," MADD continues to quote the unsubstantiated estimate as scientific fact. Non-profit organizations typically permit their chapters to keep most of the money they raise. But MADD claims ownership of every penny raised by all its many chapters. There are no pleas for sober driving, no calls for more sobriety checkpoints, no news reports, no petitions for legislation to reduce impaired driving and improve traffic safety just fund-raising appeals.

MADD's national web site lists all local chapters. Each listing is followed by a plea to "Donate Locally. In reality, all funds, wherever donated, must go directly and completely to the national office for use as it sees fit.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving is fueled by anger and grief. In fact, its original name was Mothers Against Drunk Drivers. A case in point. Research suggests that using a cell phone while driving may cause more traffic fatalities than driving drunk. But when a MADD official was asked how traffic fatality statistics involving cell phone use compared to those involving drunk drivers, he tellingly replied "I have absolutely no idea, nor do I care.

The president of MADD Canada was outraged and publicly blasted a judge who sentenced a repeat drunk driver to restrictions, including electronically-monitored severe limits on his mobility on condition he remain in treatment for his alcoholism. The driver had maintained a long period of sobriety before experiencing a relapse.

In handing down the sentence, the judge cited scientific research demonstrating that severe punishments are ineffective in deterring drunk driving by alcoholics. Therefore, she developed a sentence designed to reinforce the long-term effectiveness of his rehabilitation. MADD Canada strongly disagreed with the judge and wanted severe punishment rather than rehabilitation.

MADD's original goal was an enormously important one -- to reduce drunk driving and the deaths and injuries that it causes. However, as its founder observed, the group has become neo-prohibitionist. As a former MADD chapter president explains, it's "a big corporation" and "all about money. Attacking such funding is not related to reducing drunken driving. A bill introduced in the Florida legislature at the request of the university would permit adult students age 18 and older to participate fully in any curriculum requiring such courses.

No alcohol would ever be consumed because the beverage would be savored and spit out in a supervised classroom environment. In spite of these strong protections and lack of any danger whatsoever, Mothers Against Drunk driving steadfastly refused to support this education bill. The vast majority of underage people, including those adults who are , consume alcohol before reaching age Think about it. Because a large majority of young people over the past half- century have consumed alcohol, the majority of drivers today would be drunken drivers if MADD were correct.

Again, MADD is wrong. However, MADD strongly opposed the idea. However, Mothers Against Drunk Driving has objected to both the name and the fact that the soft drink's market includes those under the age of 21!

It opposes the participation of an underage person in religious services involving the consumption of alcohol. It even opposes adults under the age of 21 toasting their mutual love at their wedding with a celebratory drink. If MADD really wanted to reduce traffic fatalities, it would also care about these major causes of traffic deaths but it clearly doesn't. MADD is no longer a safety-promotion organization but an anti-alcohol organization. The coordinator for Responsible Education and Actions for Campus Health at the University of Central Florida supports the idea because it could reduce drunk driving.

To prevent underage purchases, the service requires buyers to show their drivers licenses, which are digitally photographed.

Although the service sells only to adults of legal age and may reduce drunk and impaired driving, the president of the Central Florida chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving calls it "frightening" because there is no sure way to make certain that none of the beverage ever falls into the hands of a person under the age of Of course, that's also true of alcoholic beverages purchased in a liquor store, wine shop, grocery store, or elsewhere.

MADD's opposition appears to have more to do with its anti-alcohol attitudes than with logic. The offer was limited to four beers, beverage servers are all trained to detect intoxication and won't serve to anyone who appears to be intoxicated, and the club offers free taxi rides home for anyone who thinks they may have had too much to drink.

About 25 patrons took advantage of the marketing offer and no complaints were made against the marketing promotion. Nevertheless, officials at Mothers Against Drunk Driving were outraged.

It's a huge insult to our community," insisted one MADD leader. Another MADD official said "they're obviously using alcohol to get business. They were offering alcohol, not cocaine, heroin or other illegal drugs. Apparently MADD believes that drinking is irresponsible, an insult to others, and that alcohol is an unacceptable consumer product.

Washington Times editorial , The package conspicuously states that it is best not to drive even at low BAC levels. The Governor's Office of Highway Safety promotes the plan as the first part of an aggressive campaign to reduce alcohol-related traffic accidents.

Although it is praised by many parents, Mothers Against Drunk Driving is strongly opposed to the plan, which it sees as inconsistent with the organization's strict abstinence message. These young MADD activists understandably oppose drunk driving, as does everyone else. They oppose all alcohol ads. They oppose any media portrayal of moderate drinking by senior citizens if it can be viewed by anyone under age Some even oppose moderate drinking by adults of any age at any time under any circumstance.

For example, he has estimated that alcohol kills 1, college students now raised to 1, each year, although there is evidence suggesting that the number may be closer to 16 students each year. Mothers Against Drunk Driving "has basically become a propaganda mill churning out false and misleading statistics. It imperils the integrity" of MADD and other groups in the field. MADD's assertion that underage drinkers are 50 times more likely to use cocaine than abstainers made James Mosher "cringe," according to the Wall Street Journal.

Mosher stressed that there is no research "that shows there's a cause and effect and that's being implied" by MADD. Laurence Ross reported that increasing the severity of punishments for drunk driving has only a short-term impact on drunk driving, MADD turned on him with a vengeance usually reserved for drunk drivers themselves.

It even accused Dr. Ross, a respected scholar with proven integrity, of being the drunk driver's best friend. Ross is a strong foe of drunk driving who began studying the problem long before the existence of MADD. He has identified research-based evidence of what policies are most effective in reducing drunk driving. Although it's declining, the problem of alcohol-related traffic fatalities remains very serious.

Similarly, the Partnership for Safe Driving has criticized the President of MADD for misleading the public about road risks by asserting that "We don't want cell phones and drowsy driving to become the next hot-button issue for the country, because they don't even compare with the problem of drunk driving.

The Partnership points out that it's completely legitimate for an organization to focus on only one of the causes of traffic fatalities. Whose interest would that serve? Certainly not the public's. In reality, all forms of dangerous driving merit serious attention and ample funding.

Those who suffer death or injury as a result of any form of dangerous driving suffer equally. Research throughout North America has repeatedly demonstrated that the average blood alcohol concentration BAC of drivers involved in fatal traffic crashes is about 1.

This is over twice the legal limit of. Charles V. Pena, former MADD official. Yet the Mothers Against Drunk Drivers operation in Canada insists that the problem of hard-core drunken drivers is a myth. In calling for lowering the legal BAC down to. Mann, in turn, had extracted those numbers from two separate studies whose data was culled from Sweden and Australia.

For starters, the Aussie study examined the effectiveness of random breath testing spot checks , not lowered BAC levels, on fatal traffic collisions.

Also, that research was initiated in , at a time when liquid lunches were far more common. The MADD proposal would make it illegal for a small woman to drive after consuming a single drink and would divert police attention and resources away from high-risk, high BAC, hard-core drivers. Mothers Against Drunk Driving spends most of its time in "self-perpetuating fund-raising efforts.

An official of the American Institute of Philanthropy said, "we'd like to see MADD spend a lot more money on things other than asking for more money. Fundraising pitches say " However, an investigative report by the Toronto-Star reveals a very different and troubling story.

The enormous discrepancy is because MADD counts payments to professional fundraisers as charitable work, claiming they educate potential donors as they make their pitch. However, the AIP and similar groups have long insisted that such a practice is deceptive and unacceptable. The Charities Directorate specifically disputes his contention and says the practice is definitely not allowed.

In , MADD was cautioned by the Charities Directorate following an audit for confusing fundraising and charitable works. It wrote to MADD that the corporation "made incorrect allocations of expenditures between those incurred of a fundraising nature from those funds spent on charitable activities.

However, the Charities Directorate says this accounting method is not approved and emphasizes that charities must carefully distinguish their good works from their fundraising campaigns. People from MADD branches across the country demanded in a conference call that Murie order an independent audit by an outside organization, but he refused and only agreed to an internal or self-review of its finances.

MADD has "taken a national tragedy and turned it into a fundraising machine. She said the group found the MADD leader to be uncooperative. Veteran volunteers are opposed to what they consider deceitful fundraising practices and are also displeased that Murie refuses reveal MADD finances, including salaries and management costs.

MADD has never liked any questions by anyone to be raised about its finances. After the Las Vegas chapter asked financial questions it was closed. As early as the mids, MADD pushed gambling events to follow high school proms. MADD adamantly opposes letting parents or priests serve alcohol to adults under the age of 21 for any reason whatsoever, yet promotes gambling among young adults.

However, 18 to 21 year old adults are about three times more likely to have problems with gambling, according to the leading expert on compulsive gambling, Dr. Rachel Volberg. More specifically, Dr. One noteworthy case was the battle over two California ballot initiatives Propositions 30 and 31 that sought to permit an automobile accident victim to sue the at-fault driver's insurance company if legal claims weren't paid promptly.

Considering that victims of drunk drivers stood to gain an important legal tool, most Californians expected MADD to lead the charge in favor of these new measures. MADD defended its position at the time by arguing that drunk drivers themselves, if convicted only of lesser charges, could sue insurance companies under the proposed law.

Even after California's Attorney General disagreed, ruling that Propositions 30 and 31 could never give drunk drivers new rights, MADD never budged from its contradictory position.

The organizations motive? Greed, plain and simple. Actually, they're more investors than donors. GM is a good example. General Motors very aggressively promotes speeding as a pleasurable activity in order to sell its cars.

What does MADD say about speeding? And laws requiring auto manufacturers to meet higher safety standards on all vehicles might save thousands more from death and injury.

Does MADD let its desire to continue receiving multi-million dollar contributions influence its position on safety issues? She said "We're not here to talk about cell phones. We're here to talk about alcohol. MADD uncharacteristically but very aggressively promotes the use of seatbelts. Aligning with MADD gives your company added credibility and increased power by:. Several supermarket chains have been substantial contributors of money to the chapter.

The communications director for the MADD chapter denies that money has anything to do with its neutrality. However, MADD virtually always opposes any law that increases the availability of alcohol to the population.

MADD reported on its non-profit tax form that "This revenue is earned from DWI offenders who must pay a donation to MADD" to attend a meeting in which they learn the impact that impaired driving accidents have on those who suffer as a result. Although they are a very profitable business for MADD, there appears to be little evidence that they are effective at all in reducing the incidence of either impaired or intoxicated driving. The privilege was originally provided over years ago to protect members of Congress from politically-motivated arrests made in an effort to prevent then from voting or otherwise performing their official duties.

MADD has helped to save nearly , lives, reduce drunk driving deaths by more than 50 percent and promote designating a non-drinking driver.

Visit www. According to the new report, these states had the most-drunk driving attempts prevented by an interlock in Wisconsin 41, Wisconsin has a drunk driving problem. Even with a subpar law, there were more than 13, interlock installations in Lawmakers have not made an improvement to the law since Texas 32, Texas has an all-offender interlock law.

There is not a compliance-based removal aspect to the Texas law, but probation departments that implement court-ordered ignition interlock use can extend the amount of time or take other action if an interlock records a driver attempting to drive drunk. Kimberly-Clark Foundation. Kmart Corporation. Kmart Family Foundation. Kurz Family Foundation. Laurie Tisch Sussman Foundation. Leo J.

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