Time to Get Mad

ONE OUT OF EVERY TWO Americans will have a run-in with a drunk driver in his or her lifetime.

Although social and legal avenues to destroy this atrocious fact are slowly being cleared, much more needs to be done to stop drunk people from ever getting behind the wheel. Because the burden of awakening the media, state legislatures and the public falls upon tiny interest groups, little has as yet been accomplished.

Before Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD)--a nationwide organization of relatives of drunk driving accident victims--began protesting the legal loopholes that permit drunk driving, the maximum sentence for vehicular homicide was an unconscionable two and a half years.

And judges actually allowed thousands of dangerously drunk drivers arrested for the first time to plea bargain their way out of any punishment at all.

Happily for Massachusetts, Gov. Edward J. King recently signed several new laws that will boost the punishment facing drunk drivers. But that means the system has gone into a trot instead of the full gallop needed to catch up with the drunk driving problem.

A first offender will now automatically lose his license for 30 days, and judges will no longer be able to table drunk driving cases indefinitely. A second-time offender must choose between a seven-day jail sentence or a 14-day rehabilitation program at a completely isolated facility. Half of the mandatory fee offenders pay will go to support increased police coverage on state roads. And vehicular homicide now carries a mandatory sentence of one to 10 years. That sentence hardly seems harsh enough, but at least the emphasis is now on actual punishment instead of probation.

The problem, as the chairman of the special task force that drew up the drunk driving legislation stresses, that some of his committee's most potent legislation failed to gain state legislative approval, in spite of King's support. Which is too bad--the measures that the legislature left by the wayside are needed for any program that realistically hopes to curb drunk drivers. They include laws that would:

*make passengers in a car with a drunk driver guilty of a misdemeanor, creating more peer pressure to prevent drunks from getting into their cars;

*allow victim's families to testify at trials, forcing people to hear the havoc drunk drivers have wreaked; and

*put more responsibility on bartenders who serve inebriated customers additional drinks, knowing that these people will have to drive home.

SADLY, EVEN THE TOUGHEST laws won't be enough. Drunk driving is still essentially acceptable in society. A National Highway Traffic Safety Administration official estimates that for every 2000 drunk driving trips, only one offender is arrested, and that over 10 percent of all drivers on weekend nights are legally intoxicated. Citizens have to be more active in educating people about the dangers of mixing alcohol and driving. And society's view of inebriation as an acceptable means of having a good ol' time has to begin changing.

Groups such as MADD and Students Against Driving Drunk (SADD)--a high school group begun in Massachusetts--have started to spread educational programs. SADD members sign contracts with their parents about calling home for drives--no questions asked. But there are only so many people these small groups can hope to reach.

Carol Lawler's 15-year-old son was one of the 250,000 people killed during the past 10 years in a drunk driving accident. A drunk driver careened off the road and crushed him as he stood with his family on the lawn of a restaurant. But since the new laws weren't in effect, the man--a repeat offender--received a four-and-a-half year jail sentence and is now eligible for parole after serving only two years. His three drunk passengers walked away from the accident scot-free.

But Lawler, who is president of the greater Boston chapter of MADD, doesn't want sympathy. She says, "I can feel sorry enough for myself. What I want people to do is to get mad."

People like Lawler aren't out for personal revenge. All they want to do is to make sure the lives of their children--or themselves--won't be ruined by a drunk driver. So far, though, it seems that the only people who care are the ones whose lives have already been marred by such a tragedy.