No one wants to criticize Mothers Against Drunk Driving. The name of the group conjures up an image of noble women working to enact policies to ensure that their innocent children will not suffer harm because of intoxicated people behind the wheel. This would be a commendable effort if it were the only objective. MADD, however, has morphed from a well-intended advocacy group into a misguided bureaucracy intent on diminishing individual liberty.
Candy Lightner formed MADD in 1980, after a repeat drunk driving offender killed her daughter. Through educating the public about the dangers of drunk driving and helping to pass legislation to implement better enforcement and tougher penalties, alcohol related traffic fatalities decreased by nearly 50 percent.
In 1985, however, MADD’s board of directors, composed mainly of salaried male executives, fired Lightner. Although the board claimed that she was making excessive demands on the budget, she insisted that the group now consisted of radical prohibitionists who did not want to simply prosecute drunk drivers, but all people who drink. “[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,” Lightner said. She later joined the liquor lobby.
Since Lightner’s dismissal, MADD has changed its motto from “Don’t Drive Drunk” to “Don’t Drink and Drive.” It has campaigned to put alcohol sensors in every American’s car, supported alcohol taxes to reduce consumption, and even advocated for taking children away from a parent who has a drink before driving. The group also called for an increase in sobriety checkpoints, an invasive and arguably unreasonable search and seizure.
But businesses have faced tougher consequences than drunk drivers from MADD’s actions. The American Beverage Institute, represented by lobbyist Rick Berman, works to maintain restaurants’ ability to serve alcohol at their locations. MADD attacks restaurants that serve alcohol because adults will have to get in their cars and drive home after drinking. The concern is not that these people are drunk, but rather that they have had something to drink. In addition, prohibiting Americans from drinking when not at home will severely harm the economic well-being of the hospitality industry.
MADD’s most recent campaign is to install “interlock” devices in the car of every first time DUI offender. Interlock devices require the driver to blow into a device that checks BAC before the car will start. At random points throughout driving, the device requires another blow to ensure that the driver is not drinking while driving. Even if drivers were only .01 over the legal limit one time while driving, they will be subjected to this policy. 13 states already use this mandate, and MADD intends to help implement the policy in every other state.
Drunk driving is dangerous and stupid. MADD’s problem is that everyone already knows this. Since the 1980s, American society has stigmatized drunk driving and the amount of alcohol related traffic fatalities has consistently decreased. America no longer needs MADD, but the group has failed to realize its decreasing relevance. Instead, using its influence and reputation, MADD has taken on a new task– attacking a citizen’s right to choose to drink alcohol.
Prohibition started as a well-intended movement to protect women and children, and ended up exacerbating the problem. MADD will repeat this history at the expense of personal freedom should it continue to outlive its usefulness.