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Comment by ardit33 | Hacker News Reader

no, but they will say that when the drinking ban was added, and their "don't drink and drive" campain started in the late 80s, alcohol related deaths were reduced.

Yet, they fail to explain how in Canada there was similiar drop in alocohol deaths, yet madd was not active there.

Could it be just that cars are getting better, and improving the chances of surviavility? There is a lot of stats out there, and you can cherry pick certain stats, in order to prove your claims, and get away with it, as few people will actually look into them.

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MADD is fairly active in Canada, and they've been influential in getting the legal blood-alcohol level lowered. Most provinces now have penalties (not criminal) if you're over .05 to go with the preexisting criminal penalties for over .08. I think that the penalties for drunk driving are harsher and more enforced than in the past too. And they also have graduated driver's licenses for young people now, which (I think) include zero tolerance or something.

But overall probably more sane to try to stop drunk driving by young people rather than drinking by young people.

But in the 80's, when this fall took place, MADD Canada wasn't around (it was formed in 1990) and driving laws were a lot more lax.

Late 80s is pretty close to 1990, and I'd bet MADD USA was active in Canada before they actually created a formal organization. Not that I really know that for sure.

In general (I was around in the late eighties) I'd say that that's the time when drunk driving basically became socially unacceptable in Canada. I think it's still acceptable in the US to a much greater extent. Whether that was because of MADD or not, I don't know.

social acceptability is the big problem. driving is the only activity most people commonly engage in that routinely kills people. It needs to be taken more seriously and the step towards that isn't legislation it's making it socially unacceptable for people to drive recklessly.

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