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Mothers Against Drunk Driving

Initial formation of the organization Mothers Against Drunk Drivers (afterward Mothers Against Drunk Driving), or MADD, occurred in a context of the bereavement and loss experienced by two mothers, one in California and one in Florida, Candy Lightner and Cindi Lamb, respectively. Lightner's daughter had been killed by a drunk driver in 1980, and Lamb was in a 1979 car accident in which a drunk driver's actions left her infant daughter a lifelong quadriplegic. The organization began with lobbying efforts at the state-legislature level, calling upon lawmakers to target "drunks behind the wheel," lax enforcement of liquor laws affecting minors, and dispensers of liquor to persons obviously intoxicated who become involved in alcohol-related accidents and injuries (Sellinger, 1984, p. 102; Lightner, 1985). MADD appears to have been effective and at least partially responsible for changes in liquor laws and related law-enforcement practices in various states, such as mandating a legal drinking age of 21 and enactment of dram-shop-liability laws, enabling prosecution of liquor sellers whose alcohol-influenced customers become culpable in related personal-injury or criminal activity (Sloan, et al., 2000).

Controversy caught up with MADD some five years after its inception and in the early phase of its growing national profile. From the standpoint of civil liberties, critics argued that MADD advocacy and the enforcement and judicial practices that could be linked to it unfairly targeted Constitutional protections. Requirements on penalty of imprisonment of those stopped by the police for traffic violations for not taking breathalyzer tests at the scene were cited for their imprecision, ineffectiveness at altering the behavior that was the subject of MADD's campaigns, and for the Constitutional hazards they implied (Ross & Hughes, 1986). From the standpoint of social and communications theory, MADD was analyzed as fostering the social constru...

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Mothers Against Drunk Driving. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 10:37, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1689239.html