If it seems that red ribbons on car antennas aren’t catching the public eye as they did in the past, the people fighting drunken driving have the same suspicion.
Mothers Against Drunk Driving, the national organization that became a household name by pushing the ribbons and the idea of designated drivers for the better part of two decades, is grappling with how to continue its success in a public arena crowded with other causes.
In Illinois, the group has fallen on especially hard times. MADD’s Chicago chapter has closed because it can’t attract the volunteers needed to run the organization. Statewide, the group remains alive, but its executive director resigned in October, and its budget is down from the previous year.
After at least six years of trying, MADD-Illinois also has yet to persuade state lawmakers to lower the legal blood-alcohol level at which a driver is considered intoxicated, to 0.08 percent blood-alcohol content from 0.10 percent.
In many ways, MADD’s troubles in Illinois mirror those that the group is battling nationally, where fundraising also is down. Across the country, MADD officials blame their problems on what they acknowledge has become a stale message for a public that thinks the problem of intoxicated drivers has been largely solved.
“We have been very successful in passing tougher laws, increasing enforcement and saving lives. Many people in the public feel this is a problem that has been around for a long time and it’s basically solved,” said Marti Belluschi, who was executive director of MADD-Illinois until 1992 and now handles drunken-driving prevention efforts for Illinois Secretary of State George Ryan.
Yet statistics show drunken driving continues to cause many deaths on the nation’s roads. Nationally, and in Illinois, deaths in alcohol-related auto collisions are up. And a new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that the prevalence of motorists who acknowledge having driven while intoxicated is 82 percent higher than the arrest rate for driving drunk.
In 1994 and 1995 in Illinois, the number of deaths due to alcohol-related crashes rose after a steady five-year decline. In 1995, 681 people were killed, according to Ryan’s office. Nationwide in 1995, deaths from alcohol-related crashes rose for the first time in a decade, to 17,274.
Katherine Prescott, MADD’s national president, says her organization is battling “the perception that the problem is solved and that we don’t need money or anyone working on it.
“MADD needs some commitment and dedication by people who say, `We don’t want to go backward in this movement,’ ” she said. “I hate to say this, but sometimes it takes a major tragedy to get the movement sparked again.”
The question facing the organization is how to recapture the attention of motorists too familiar with the sobriety sermon.
For its part, MADD’s national office is turning its beams on underage drinking. In May, the organization is holding a national youth summit in Washington, D.C., that will conclude with the teenage participants’ recommendations on attacking underage drinking among the next generation of drivers.
Also, the national office plans to begin targeting corporations for donations to offset the fierce competition among nonprofit groups seeking money from individuals.
The urgency behind ending drunken driving has faded for the public, says Ruth Wooden, president of The Advertising Council, the largest distributor of public service announcements in the U.S. None of the council’s anti-drunken driving spots is produced for MADD, but the topical spots haven’t gotten as much airing as in past years, said Wooden.
“MADD institutionalized concepts like designated drivers and friends stopping friends from drinking. It’s had an effect, and it’s worked. Now it’s lost a little of its urgency, and you see the statistics climbing back up. This is a phenomenon that requires vigilance,” Wooden said.
Prescott says the organization’s power is still the local volunteers who pass out red ribbons, talk at schools and hold candlelight vigils such as the one planned for April in Springfield.
But she added: “If we don’t have a (Chicago) chapter, it is really going to hurt us in keeping this matter before the public eye, and the legislature is not going to do anything to pass laws in Illinois.”
Since it was formed in the mid-1980s, MADD-Illinois has helped give the state some of the nation’s toughest anti-drunken driving laws.
MADD worked with state leaders to pass a 1995 law automatically revoking the license of an underage driver for three months if any alcohol is found in the driver’s system. It also helped pass a law, which took effect Jan. 1, allowing drunken drivers to receive only once in a lifetime the punishment of court supervision, which lets the motorist continue driving.
“They’ve been very effective in passing a number of bills,” said state Sen. Carl Hawkinson (R-Galesburg), who has sponsored much of the state’s major anti-drunken driving legislation.
In 1993, MADD rated Illinois top among all states in terms of legislation, enforcement, public awareness and other anti-drunken driving fronts. But since then, the momentum behind the state’s campaign has wavered.
The state executive director resigned in October, and a search will begin soon to replace her.
Two sets of mailings sent out last year to find volunteers for the Chicago chapter weren’t successful. The state organization’s budget dropped to roughly $513,000 in 1996 from about $652,700 in 1995, according to the national office. The 1996 budget was provided almost equally by national and state fundraising.
Ray Hanson is a “concerned citizen” who began volunteering as the state treasurer of MADD-Illinois six years ago. To Hanson, a salesman from Downstate Kewanee, the question is: “How do we convince people we haven’t solved this problem? We need to keep our name out in front of people and realize, if they are looking for someplace to donate their time or money, we are here.”
