Social Policies Decisions Paper

Social Policy Decisions Paper

Tina Mott

BSHS/355

October 25, 2015

Joyce Yip Green

Social Policy Decisions Paper

On May 3, 1980 Candy Lighter’s life would change forever. As her 13 year old daughter Cari Lightner set off walking on a quiet road to their church carnival, a car swerving out of control would hit her killing her instantly and then the person would leave the scene of the accident. It was later found that the driver of the car Clarence Busch was driving under the influence of alcohol and also carrying multiple intoxication arrest along with a previous hit and run just a week prior to Cari’s accident.  

In 1980 the year that Cari died there was 27,000 reported fatalities due to drinking and driving accidents alone 2500 of them being in the state of California alone. Candy Lightner after founding MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) started lobbying California’s Governor Jerry Brown to set up investigations on drunk driving.  Brown would eventually listen to Candy and make her the first member of the task force against drunk driving. In 1981 is when the laws would start buckling down on drinking and driving offenses. President Ronald Regan would ask Candy to serve on the National Commission on drunk driving which she then would eventually get the legal age of drinking changed from the age of 18 to the age of 21. By 1982 all 50 states would get stricter drinking and driving laws.

By 1985 MADD would expand to over 320 chapters and 600,000 volunteers and donors nationwide. (2009) The MADD chapter would then go on a campaign to have the legal alcohol level be dropped from 0.1 percent to 0.08. It wasn’t until the Clinton administration in 2000 when they would see their victory and the law were passed tying federal highway funds would adopt the 0.08 standard. (2009)  By 2000 almost two decades after the founding of MADD would we see a drop of alcohol related fatalities by 40% and States would now look at driving and drinking accidents fatalities as murder. (2009)

             Although MADD would have an overabundance of support, it doesn’t mean it never ran in to problems along the way.  In 1985 Candy Lightner would leave the organization because she was not happy with how the focus had turned.  She stated that 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” (Bresnahan, 2002).  The group has been criticized on different occasions for their ways. In 2002, Radley Balko, an advocate for decriminalizing drunk driving, made the argument that MADD's policies were becoming overbearing. Balko wrote, "In fairness, MADD deserves credit for raising awareness of the dangers of driving while intoxicated. It was almost certainly MADD's dogged efforts to spark public debate that affected the drop in fatalities since 1980, when Candy Lightner founded the group after her daughter was killed by a drunk driver. But MADD is at heart a bureaucracy, a big one. It boasts an annual budget of $45 million, $12 million of which pays for salaries, pensions, and benefits. Bureaucracies don't change easily, even when the problems they were created to address change" (Balko, 2002).