By: Russell Keener  —  February 16, 2011
 

A Brief His­tory of Drunk Driving

Candy Light­ner, the mother of a 13 year-old girl killed by a drunk dri­ver, founded MADD in 1980. Groups imme­di­ately sprang up around the coun­try and sev­eral impor­tant changes took place:

Within three years, states and com­mu­ni­ties passed 129 new laws to stop drunk dri­ving, accord­ing to MADD. The National Min­i­mum Drink­ing Age Act was passed in 1984, mak­ing it ille­gal in every state to drink in pub­lic or buy alco­hol before age 21.

Between 1982, when state and local gov­ern­ments started track­ing drunk-driving arrests, and the mid-1990s, the per­cent­age of peo­ple killed by drunk dri­vers plum­meted. And it has stayed down, says Anne McCartt, senior vice pres­i­dent for research at the Insur­ance Insti­tute for High­way Safety, a non-profit research and com­mu­ni­ca­tions group funded by major auto insurers.

In 2000, the fed­eral Con­gress coerced the states into make it ille­gal to drive with a blood alco­hol con­cen­tra­tion of 0.08 per­cent or less. States had to com­ply or lose fed­eral high­way funding.

The drop in drunk-driving fatal­i­ties does not mean that our nation’s drunk dri­ving prob­lem has been solved. As lawyers who rep­re­sent DUI vic­tims, we see first hand the toll that drunk dri­vers take on oth­ers. We fight to hold each and every DUI dri­ver account­able within the civil jus­tice system.

Atlanta DUI Wrong­ful Death Lawyers

The Atlanta Wrong­ful Death lawyers at the Keener Law Firm rep­re­sent indi­vid­u­als and fam­i­lies who have been impacted by all types of injury-producing inci­dents, includ­ing auto acci­dents, motor­cy­cle acci­dents, per­sonal injury, prop­erty dam­age, and wrong­ful death claims caused by DUI impaired (drunk) dri­vers, Call toll free at (800) 900‑2400 or locally at (770) 955‑3000 for a free and con­fi­den­tial consultation.