Obama chooses MADD official to lead safety agency

Fox ^ | 4/9/09 | staff

[Trailerpark Badass]

The problem, as with most advocacy groups, is that they overreached, more concerned with satisfying the desires of a few zealots than in crafting reasonable social policy.

Sane people know that .08 is too low and does not represent "impairment" in the average adult.

Spend some time around your local courthouse and you will see that only a tiny percentage of DUIs involve an accident. It's just a revenue scheme for the local criminal justice system. Every time someone blows .08 after being pulled over for "failure to maintain lane," MADD gains an opponent.

[Nathan Zachary]

"If you think the drunk driving laws are too tough and blame MADD, sorry you won’t get any sympathy from me. You’re free to put your own life at risk all you want, but not to put my life at risk by driving drunk.'

My life is more at risk by people driving STUPID, than people driving drunk. In fact, of "drunk driving accidents, it ISN"T the drunk that caused the accident. it was the stupid person. The drunk just happened to be in the way, and gets blamed for it automatically.

[Nathan Zachary]

So maybe we should have a law against stupid drivers, right? If your IQ isn’t up to parr, no licence for you. Or, if you get in an accident, and fail an iq test, your stupidity, regardless if it was temporary, should land you in prison because you killed someone while being stupid.

[massgopguy]

MADD are Neo-Prohibitionists. They even manufactured a story of their founder being arrested for DUI because she quit rather than be one of them.

[Responsibility2nd]

I’ll stand with you Brook.

I’ve had my A$$ flamed many a time by PRO-DRUNK DRIVING FReepers who hate MADD and their efforts to enforce the law and reduce fatalities.

But most of these morons are harmless enough. Even (Hello Elk) the ones who claim more people die in murderous mop buckets than die in DWI crashes.

I’ve learned to accept this: There are way too many liberals on Free Republic who enjoy their “right” to drive drunk.

[Brookhaven]

So maybe we should have a law against stupid drivers, right? If your IQ isn’t up to parr, no licence for you.

We already do. It's called a driving test. It is a pretty low bar, but it does weed out stupid people.

You're analogy really isn't correct. We're not talking about stupidity, we're talking about reckless behavior that puts the lives of others at extreme risk.

Driving 110 mph on a downtown street, randomly firing a gun with no idea of where the bullet will go, and driving drunk are all examples of reckless behavoir. The driver is making a CHOICE to be reckless and put the lives of others in danger.

I believe there should be laws against reckless behavior that puts the lives of others at extreme risk.

[Nathan Zachary]

MADD are behind all sorts of draconian laws. They aren’t gaining support from people over 55 who they want to see tested every 5 years, then yearly after age 65.

This is sort of a step towards that “Stupid driving” law you thought I was kidding about.

Boat operating licences, snomobiles, MADD is against anyone having fun in public.

[Alberta's Child]

MADD is nothing more than an intrusive, overbearing advocacy group whose entire agenda is built on big-government, nanny-state totalitarianism.

Candy Lightner, the woman who founded MADD after her daughter was killed by a drunk driver, quite the group several years later because she recognized that it no longer had been taken over by jack@sses who were hell-bent on using public concerns over drunk driving as a tool to implement a "neo-prohibitionist" agenda.

[Alberta's Child]

Need some more coffee today . . . scratch the "no longer" from that last post of mine. LOL.

[Nathan Zachary]

"We're not talking about stupidity, we're talking about reckless behavior that puts the lives of others at extreme risk. "

"we" so you are telling me that you are a member of this Fascist force?

Well I tell you, you may think you are miss perfect, but I bet on any day I can find you doing something "reckless" and that "reckless" behavior can be putting someone at risk.

Human nature is "reckless". But no worries, MADD is working on confining everyone to their quarters. Straight home after work on designated routes, with multiple police "spot checks" to harrass you along the way.

[nkycincinnatikid]

Interesting trial balloon.
If the sheeple swallow this and of corse they will, next ACORN will be put in charge of the census.

[Nathan Zachary]

"Driving 110 mph on a downtown street, randomly firing a gun with no idea of where the bullet will go, and driving drunk are all examples of reckless behavoir. The driver is making a CHOICE to be reckless and put the lives of others in danger."

So arrest that person and put him in prison for shooting his gun out the window of his car he's driving too fast in, and being drunk in public; reckless endangerment.The law already existed.

You don't take away everyone else's guns', create a money grab system that infringes on other people's rights to enjoy themselves, but are driving home normally and not speeding and driving recklessly.

You don't violate everyone's constitutional rights by pulling them over for no good reason, just because you want to look for "impaired" drivers. What's the definition of impaired anyways? A number on a scale on a device? Or should it be ones ability to drive?

Impaired" can cover a whole host of things, including emotional impairment, say when a couple get in a domestic fight, and the woman jumps in her car and speeds away. She's driving emotionally impaired.

Lock her up. (MADD law #120980)

[Seruzawa]

I learned something interesting back in the 90s when I was a newspaper reader for a non-profit organization. I read the 4 local newspapers each day for crime statistics. I discovered that every single drunk driving fatality for the 5 years I read the papers was caused by a chronic drunk driver with several DWI raps and a revoked license. The blood alcohol in each case was way over .20. No exception.

I never saw an accident of any kind caused by someone who blew under .10. Oh yeah, the editorials would say “blew over .08” but the actual numbers were always closer to .15.

Do you know how the local cops catch most of the drunk drivers? They drive to the clubs and mark the parked car tires with chalk. Then they follow these chalk marked cars until they violate any traffic law and then they run a breath test. It’s a big money maker. Plus they get to be all self-righteous.

MADD did a good service at first. Once they achieved their mission of stricter enforcement they should have disbanded. Instead, like any other non-profit that achieved its goals, they had to invent a new mission so the employees could keep their paychecks. Now they are a dangerous fascist organization that looks on any sort of personal freedom with suspicion.

[Nathan Zachary]

"MADD did a good service at first. Once they achieved their mission of stricter enforcement they should have disbanded. Instead, like any other non-profit that achieved its goals, they had to invent a new mission so the employees could keep their paychecks. Now they are a dangerous fascist organization that looks on any sort of personal freedom with suspicion."

That covers it nicely.

[zaphod3000]

Not that it justifies draconian law enforcement but the Los Angeles Angels lost a pitcher last night to drunk driver. From the Los Angeles Times:

Angels pitcher Nick Adenhart and two others were killed today when a minivan driven by an alleged drunk driver broadsided their car after running a red light, authorities said.

The crash occurred hours after the 22-year-old appeared in Wednesday night's Angels game. He died shortly after midinight when the minivan driver slammed into the car he was travelling in at the intersection of Orangethorpe Avenue and Lemon Street in Fullerton, police said.

Police arrested Andrew Thomas Gallo, 22, of Riverside, who will be charged with felony driving under the influence and vehicular manslaughter, said Lt. Kevin Hamilton of the Fullerton Police Department, who appeared at a news conference this morning at Angels Stadium. Gallo has a prior DUI conviction and his driver's license had been suspended . . .

[Alberta's Child]

I discovered that every single drunk driving fatality for the 5 years I read the papers was caused by a chronic drunk driver with several DWI raps and a revoked license. The blood alcohol in each case was way over .20. No exception.

That's an excellent point -- and it explains exactly why MADD is such a useless organization when it comes to preventing that kind of tragedy. I once got a fund-raising phone call from MADD, and when the woman ran through the litany of all the "legislative actions" they were pursuing I asked her a question on this very subject. My answer was something like this:

"We just had a horrific accident in my town last week with multiple fatalities . . . involving a drunk driver whose blood/alcohol level was measured at 0.25%. Please explain to me how your organization's efforts to reduce the legal limit from 0.08% to 0.05% are going to do anything to prevent a tragedy like this."

Something else to think about is this . . .

The term "alcohol-related accidents" is one of the most misleading phrases you'll ever hear. If you look at these figures closely and see what exactly constitutes an "alcohol-related accident" you'll get a good picture of a propaganda machine at work. An accident is considered "alcohol-related" even if it involves a "legally drunk" driver who is hit by a sober dingbat running a red light. And an accident is considered "alcohol-related" even if it involves a drunken pedestrian stumbling into traffic and getting struck by a sober motorist . . . or involves a drunk passenger injured or killed in a car operated by a sober driver.

[swarthyguy]

Universal Breathalyser Ignitions, here we come.

[swarthyguy]

Contrast the percentage of drunk drivers getting into accidents with those who are sober and you could make a case for banning sobriety while driving.

[Alberta's Child]

In my high school drivers' ed. class they showed a video that was supposed to demonstrate the effects of alcohol on a motorist's driving ability. They ran four drivers through a road course marked out by lines of cones, and the drivers were scored based on how many cones they knocked over. First they ran through the course sober, then again after drinking two beers, then two more beers, etc. By the time they all had 8 beers in them it was pretty comical.

The four drivers included three men and one woman.

The woman knocked over more cones "sober" than she did with two beers in her. You can imagine the kind of laughs that got in my high school class. LOL.

[Oztrich Boy]

MADD pretty much by itself changed the attitude (and laws) about drunk driving in this country. And it was not an easy change to make

And after it was accomplished, they went commercial, with high paid execs overseeing a fund raising organisation.