I Was a Teenage Advocate. . .

Posted by on . 3 comments.

(Posted by Jamie)

When I was in high school I was the president of my school’s Students Against Drunk Driving chapter, for three years. I also traveled across the state of Pennsylvania performing in high school assemblies funded by Mothers Against Drunk Driving to raise awareness about the dangers of drunk driving. During this time I was selected to serve as a delegate representing Western Pennsylvania at a national MADD convention in Washington D.C. and I appeared in a television PSA for the cause. It is safe to say that drunk driving is something I have always felt strongly about.

Since moving to New York the issue of drunk driving has, blissfully, fallen off my radar. It just isn’t a daily issue for me the way it was in high school and college. Provided the cabbies are sober I generally consider myself in good shape. But across the country nearly 17,500 people die in drunk driving related crashes annually (Most recent statistics available for 2001).

I find drunk driving the single most selfish crime there is. Never have I heard a more ridiculous rationalization than “I’m ok” from someone who can barely stand straight and (thankfully) often has trouble finding their own keys. For the most part in other violent crimes the intentions of the perpetrator are clear but drunk drivers spend a lot of time convincing themselves and those around them that the law is the problem.

Now, a national campaign called MADDatGM, complete with a slimy lobbyist, is in place to attack MADD and organize a boycott against General Motors, a lead funder of MADD. Jeffrey McCracken’s piece does a fantastic job of clearly relating the facts, but his deadpan understates the absurdity of the situation. The denial and selfishness that drunk drivers have exhibited for years is now a “legitimate” movement.

For me, the crux of the issue is this: drink yourself silly, imbibe, revel, indulge, but don’t get behind the wheel. The minute you do you take your own life and that of your passengers’, the other drivers on the road, their passengers and the pedestrians you will encounter into your hands. It’s really that simple. A situation in which someone is injured or killed due to a drunk driver is not a drunk driving accident, it is a crash – it ceases to be an “accident” when an impaired person gets behing the wheel – it becomes a choice.

Through McCracken’s piece I learned that MADDatGM claims MADD has become:

“A prohibisionist group that wants to criminalize all drinking.”

The article then accurately states MADD’s three prong mission but leaves out an important part of the mission statement which reads:

“MADD is not a crusade against alcohol consumption – MADD’s mission is to stop drunk driving, support the victims of this violent crime, and prevent underage drinking.”

A bar owner in Michigan who is not formally associated with MADDatGM states:

“MADD has successfully changed the way people dine. They forced people in groups to have one person who can’t drink at all, not even one glass of wine. That’s just wrong. Accidents are caused by hard-core alcoholics, people who are really drunk but keep getting on the road.”

His statement is not bore out by the evidence on two levels. First of all, social drinkers can and do cause crashes. And secondly – MADD’s legal efforts do not promote zero tolerance for the over 21 set. MADD has long supported legislation that has finally lowered the legal Blood Alcohol Level (BAC) in all 50 states to .08. To put that in context: McCracken’s article and MADD’s website state:

“A 170-pound man can have four to five drinks in an hour on an empty stomach before reaching a 0.08 percent blood-alcohol level. A 137-pound woman would reach 0.08 after approximately three drinks in an hour on an empty stomach.”

That’s hardly “not even one glass of wine.” But it is true that the organization’s rhetoric does support abstinence by the driver. And I’m glad it does. Truth be told, I’m a hair over 137lbs and after 3 drinks in one hour on an empty stomach, you won’t find me behind a wheel – you’ll find me on the very dirty floor of a bar. I was brought up with the rhetoric that impairment begins with the first drink and I believe it: I feel the first glass of chardonnay right behind my knees. I believe that everything happens on a continuum and while one person may be “fine” after one drink and someone else after two, there’s really no way to tell for sure. It seems a fair assumption to me, if not fact, that no one is better off after a few drinks and nearly all of us are much worse. It is presumptuous and selfish to think, in an inebriated state, you can make a safe and accurate decision about your ability to drive. A situation in which someone is injured or killed due to a drunk driver is not a drunk driving accident, it is a crash – it ceases to be an “accident” when an impaired person gets behind the wheel – it becomes a choice.

When I was in high school people always questioned my motivations. Did I know someone who was killed? Was I a victim? At the time the answer was no. A distant cousin had been killed but I didn’t know him, and that really had little to do with my passion for the cause. To me it was a clear cut issue of right and wrong and it is to this day. However, when I was in college a friend died in a single car crash on his way home from a bar. His parents refused an autopsy. The likelihood is he was drunk, impaired, inebriated, call it what you will, he is dead and his death was preventable. The notion that anyone is spending time and money to counter MADD’s mission would be laughable if it weren’t so offensive.

*Thanks to Matt Tobey for the tip.

Comments

  1. Jaime says:
    February 25, 2005 at 12:59 pm

    I really like your post. I think you are absolutely right and I am astonished that someone would actually complain about the purpose of MADD. To actually advocate for people to have the right to drink and drive is supremely selfish. If you want to kill yourself, fine, but you threaten other people’s lives when you drink and drive–and that is criminal.

    If we weren’t such a big society, if we were a small town and people all knew each other, those that behaved so anti-socially would be shamed and shunned. That’s how, once upon a time, we dealt with anti-social behavior. Now we set state and federal and city laws. And in the case of drunk driving, they have some respect of the individual’s choice because they set a legal limit that allows for a couple of drinks before deeming people impaired.

    I don’t think people get that the line between the interests of the group and the interests of the individual is not actually all that thin. It can be a really big, broad line. That space is filled up with the group respecting individuals to make their own choices and individuals willingly choosing to put their own whims and pleasures aside for the sake of not harming or infringing upon the other members of the group. It’s both the individuals and the group who have to work to keep that line thick.

    An individual keeps that line thick by deciding for himself “I would like more drinks, but I don’t NEED more drinks. It doesn’t hurt me to ensure the safety of my family, friends and community by refusing more than one or two drinks. The group maintains a thick line by trusting individuals to make their own choices.

    Individuals thin the line out by behaving antisocially– by deciding that their comfort and pleasure is more important than anyone else’s in their immediate vicinity, or, worse yet, not caring or getting annoyed when someone else asks them to cease. This applies whether it is drunk driving, stealing, blasting music in your apartment building at 4am and waking your neighbors or smoking cigarettes on a bus. It’s all anti-social. On the other hand, the line can get thinned out by the group, such as when people in the group vote to codify behaviors for everyone to follow without considering the needs and concerns of the individuals. E.g. not everyone shares the same religion, so it is overreaching for the government to legislate anything that demands individuals conform to the same religion, religious expression, or morality. Another example is the government legislating that individuals must conform to the same sexual behaviors, or to criminalize or penalize sexual behaviors that are not harmful, but which some just find icky. A government which penalizes individuals for any speech or expression they disagree with is another scenario.

    I think if more people demonstrated some sense and respect for their fellows, we wouldn’t need laws that make drunk driving illegal and we wouldn’t need organizations like MADD and SADD to help educate people.

  2. Barbara Watson says:
    February 26, 2005 at 8:44 am

    Wonderful article. Did you get it published? I have often felt that we do not take this issue seriously enough in this country. Other countries,(I dont know the statistics) especially the UK, seem to take the designated driver issue very seriously. My niece has gone as far as to leave her car and take the train home when she and her husband had a drink with dinner. Neither of them felt that they ought to drive even after several hours and only one glass of wine. This is the way it should be and wish it were.
    Another subject. What are your feelings on the gun issues?
    Barbara

  3. Malnurtured Snay says:
    February 27, 2005 at 6:02 am

    You would think someone would have told these stupid morons that MADD stands for “Mothers Against Drunk Driving” – not “Mothers Against People who speed and run stop lights and talk on the cell phone and get blow jobs from their wives while driving.”

    According to the blog Max’s Mewsings, Alamo Rent-a-Car donated $3 million to MADD, and the NFL gave $135k. But you don’t see these asshats saying, “The NFL supports a prohobitionist organization! We’re not going to show the Superbowl on our big screen TVs in our bars!”

    In an article in the Detroit Free Press, the paper quotes MADD spokeswoman Heidi Castle who I think hits the nail on the head: “This group is just trying to scare people because of our effort to lower the blood-alcohol standard to 08.”

    The same article informs us that GM “specified that its money go to underage-drinking prevention for three years and the next two years to help people harmed in drunken driving.”

    In the end we can conclude without a doubt that MADDatGM is an organization of asshats who want a lot more drunk drivers on the road, because they feel it’ll increase their bottom line.