Mothers Against Drunk Driving

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A brief overview of your interest group (be sure to put its name in bold in the first sentence) and the scope of the article goes here.

The following list of sections should serve as a loose guideline for developing the body of your article. The works cited in references 2-5 are all fake; their purpose is to serve as a formatting model for your own citations.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) is an orginization who's main goal is to eliminate drunk driving in United States.

History

In May of 1980 Candace Lightner started MADD after thirteen year old daughter was killed in a hit and run accident by a drunk driver in Fair Oaks, California. When it became known to Lightner that the driver was a repeat offender of driving while intoxicated(DWI) she took action and set up the orginization. The aim of this group was to build awareness about the dangers of drunk driving and pass laws agaist the crime.

In 1983 a movie about Lightner's situation was aired on television. After the movie aired publicity for MADD skyrocketed.

One of the first issues that was tackled by MADD was the legal drinking age. Early on teens who lived in New Jersey were able to drive to New York to purchase alcohol, where the legal age to buy was 18 years old. This issue was what originally caught the eyes of the United States Congress. In 1984 they passed the National Minimum Drinking Age Act. This is considered to be one of MADD’s greatest achievements.

In 1985 Candice Lightner resigned from her position with MADD. She had become disgruntled with the direction the organization was going in. She stated that MADD had turned into a more “neo-prohibitionist” group. Candice Lightner started MADD originally to prevent and hopefully eliminate drunk driving incidents and fatalities. Now the organization focuses more on the prevention of underage drinking, which by all means is an important issue in America, but is not what the original intension was.

In 1991, MADD released, for the first of five times, its "Rating the States" report. This report evaluated each state revealing the progress it had made in fighting drunk driving.

In 1990, MADD Canada was founded.

Founding

In 1980, the year MADD was founded, drunk driving behavior was an extremely overlooked issue that was generally accepted at the time. That mentality explains why there were approximately 30,000 deaths in America caused by alcohol-related traffic incidents. At the time they were just as their name suggests, they were mad. They were mad at politicians who had knowledge if the statistics but did not act on them. Because of this they challenged a society that viewed drinking and driving as acceptable, an industry that valued profit over safety, and a government that entirely neglected the issue. This caused the inspiration of many others to get involved. Thousands more people rose up to support MADD’s goal of safety.

This subsection should provide some historical context for the founding of your group, explain the motivations behind it, and describe the steps taken and challenges faced by its founders to get the ball rolling.

Current objectives and activities

Nearly Thirty years ago, Candice Lightner made a pledge in her deceased daughter’s bedroom to take a stand against the outrage of drunk driving. This decision quickly inspired a handful of determined mothers to join in the fight as well. According to the group’s website, MADD.org, the mission or purposes of MADD as stated in its Articles of Incorporation were “To aid the victims of crimes performed by individuals driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, to aid the families of such victims and to increase public awareness of the problem of drinking and drugged driving. The goal of Mothers Against Drunk Driving was and still is to eliminate drunk driving through education and the enforcement of laws. Along with that, MADD also supports the victims involved in drunk driving incidents. This includes family members from both the innocent and guilty parties. MADD They also works to maintain the age of twenty-one as the legal age for consumption. It is because of them that twenty-one is the legal limit across the entire nation.

MADD’s campaign for the elimination of drunk driving focuses on four major components. These components consist of: highly-publicized law enforcement efforts; implementing current alcohol ignition interlock technologies; exploring advanced vehicle technologies; and mobilizing public support. Ignition interlock technologies are devices that are hooked up to the engine of your car. Every time you go to start your car, you need to blow into a tube, and if it detects any amount of alcohol on your breath the vehicle will not start. These machines would be installed in all drunk driving offenders vehicle’s in order to prevent any chances of another accident.

In 1984 MADD updated its mission statement to “Mothers Against Drunk Driving provides grassroots leadership to create major social change in the attitude and behavior of Americans toward drunk driving. In 1985 Candice Lightner resigned from her position with MADD. She had become disgruntled with the direction the organization was going in. She stated that MADD had turned into more of a “neo-prohibitionist” group than DUI Prevention. Candice Lightner started MADD for the soul purpose of preventing, and hopefully eliminating drunk driving incidents and fatalities. Now the organization focuses more on the prevention of underage drinking, which by all means is an important issue in America, but is not the original intension.

They currently are continuing research on ways to educate teens, prevent adolescent usage of alcohol, and at the same time are pushing for new legislation to be passed. All of which is funded by various sources. The government, corporations, educators, the media, and the public are all sources that support MADD in its fight.

Organizational structure

This section should describe the group's organizational structure, including its principal leadership positions and their current incumbents.

Achievements

Since 1980 drunk driving fatalities have been reduced by over 40 percent. Looking at statistics from that year, that is more than 330,000 lives that have been saved. MADD has also succesfully helped establish .08 as the legal blood alcohal content level (bac) for every state in the United States and maintain 21 as the legal age for consumption.

In 2000, MADD pushed to make .08 the legal BAC limit all across the country. Finally the law was passed by Congress and by 2005, for every state to have the illegal .08 BAC limit.

In 2001, the NHTSA's Fatality Analysis Reporting System estimated an annual total of 17,448 alcohol-related deaths. MADD believes this to be the result of their efforts.

MADD argued the fact that the brain does not stop developing until the early 20‘s, the consumption of alcohol can cause damages in brain development. MADD cites that the NHTSA data that the 21 minimum drinking age law has saved 17,000 lives since 1988.

MADD also feels that the group's efforts have brought about the major decrease inn alcohol related deaths in the country. They claim alcohol-related fatalities declined more than non-alcohol-related fatalities.

In 2005 alcohol related deaths per year have declined from 26,173 in 1982 to 16,885.

This section should recount the group's major achievements, including but not limited to legislative and/or legal victories.

Public perception and controversies

In developing this final section, be especially careful about maintaining a neutral stance and tone. Your aim should be to document the public's perception of your group and/or any controversies in which it is or has been embroiled without weighing in with your own opinion about them.