Yesterday, Virginia Gonzalez, executive director of MADD’s West Texas office revealed her group’s anti-alcohol sentiment when KFOX-TV quoted her saying: “If you drink and drive, you will ultimately end up in a body bag or behind bars. That’s the bottom line.”
Contrary to MADD’s zero tolerance stance on alcohol, the fact is that drinking and driving is perfectly safe and legal in all 50 states. There is nothing wrong or dangerous about having a glass of wine with dinner, a beer at a ballgame, or a champagne toast at a wedding prior to driving. Drunk driving is the true problem. That’s why we have a legal limit.
In the 1980’s and early 1990’s, MADD did great work to educate Americans about the dangers of drunk driving (their efforts resulted in a large decrease in fatalities). But in recent years, MADD has become, in the words of its own founder, “very neo-prohibitionist.”
KFOX’s story was about a tragic crash caused by a man whom police say was intoxicated. He was not simply “drinking,” as Gonzalez insinuated. He was drunk.
MADD wants you to believe that any drinking – even moderate and responsible drinking – prior to driving is immoral and dangerous. That’s not the case. In fact, the average drunk driver involved in a fatal crash was driving at more that double the legal limit. If MADD got back to basics and spent more time fighting drunk driving, instead of stigmatizing drinking, maybe this crash could have been prevented.
The ABI blog stated: “In the 1980’s and early 1990’s, MADD did great work to educate Americans about the dangers of drunk driving (their efforts resulted in a large decrease in fatalities).”
That sentence sounds like propaganda lifted directly from MADD’s website – because it simply isn’t true. MADD efforts have done nothing but help the government create criminals by raising the minimum legal drinking age and lowering the definition of “drunk” to 0.08 BAC.
When MADD was a fledgling organization, NHTSA provided it with technical assistance and grants to create new chapters that peddled lying propaganda to the public and gullible legislators. With MADD’s support, our “representatives” in Washington then employed the criminal act of extortion to coerce states into raising the MLDA and redefining “drunk.”
In the interim, punishments for drunk driving increased, growing from harsh to sadistic. But now drivers with low BACs are subjected to draconian penalties once reserved for actual drunk drivers (0.15+ BAC). That’s not enough for MADD – it wants the limit set at 0.05 BAC – which would create more criminals.
“We believe that the best practice is not to drink and drive and that means zero. If that’s neo-prohibitionist, then we are,” declared MADD CEO Chuck Hurley.
The drunk driver problem is – and always has been – with drivers who have BACs well above 0.15, the former legal line. But MADD considers all drinking drivers, regardless of their BAC, to be “violent criminals.”
“Drunk driving is the most frequently committed violent crime in America,” said Hurley. “Law enforcement is out there protecting the public from people who, almost like terrorists, are killing and maiming far too many.”
If MADD has its way and one is “drunk” at 0.05 BAC, there will be even more “terrorists” on the roads. To combat Hurley’s delusional terrorist threat and effectively lower the legal limit to a “zero tolerance” level, MADD and NHTSA are diligently working on alcohol interlocks as standard equipment in all vehicles. If / when that happens, every driver will then be a victim of the MADDness, forced to prove they’re innocent of consuming alcohol.
The war against drinking driving – the MADDness – has produced victims we rarely hear about: Millions upon millions of drivers who have harmed nothing have been thrown in jail. For many, jobs have been lost, credit ratings ruined and homes gone. Thousands have committed suicide while behind bars on DUI charges. Cities use DUI arrests as a source of revenue – that’s highway robbery. Furthermore, every American is a victim since the Bill of Rights has taken a beating, e.g., unconstitutional roadblocks.
That’s what MADD’s efforts have accomplished.
Stephen Beck