Word: lightners
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SENTENCED. Clarence Busch, 52, drunken driver whose 1980 killing of 13-year- old Cari Lightner in Fair Oaks, Calif., prompted her mother Candy to form Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD); to four years in prison for crashing his car while intoxicated last April into an auto driven by Carrie Sinnott, causing her minor injuries; in Sacramento. After his conviction in the Lightner case, Busch spent about 2 1/2 years in prison, work camps and halfway houses before his parole last February...
MADD was founded in 1980 by Candy Lightner, 38, after one of her three children was struck and killed by a drunk driver while walking in a bicycle lane. A year later she said, "We've kicked a few pebbles, we'll turn a few stones, and eventually we'll start an avalanche." In these postavalanche days, MADD is getting just about all the laws it wants. A total of 37 states have "dram shop" laws or legal precedents holding servers of alcohol responsible for the acts of drunks. Happy hours, banned or restricted in 15 states so far, seem...
...went to see California Governor Jerry Brown to persuade him to appoint a task force to deal with drunk driving. Brown declined to receive her. She went to his office every day, talking to anyone who would listen. After newspapers publicized Lightner's crusade, Brown finally told her that he was appointing the task force and that she would be a member. "I just started crying right there in his office," Lightner says...
Once launched, Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) proved a virtually irresistible force. Now headquartered near Dallas, where Lightner moved, MADD has 320 chapters nationwide and 600,000 volunteers and donors. In response to Lightner's efforts, California passed a tough new law in 1981 that imposes minimum fines of $375 and mandatory imprisonment of up to four years for repeat offenders. By now all 50 states have tightened their drunk-driving laws. And Lightner keeps making speeches, lobbying legislators and generally creating waves. Last July she stood beside President Ronald Reagan as he signed a new law reducing federal highway...
...believe that for every problem there is a solution," Lightner says. "We are changing the way people think about drinking and driving. But more than that, we have caused people to change their behavior, and that is saving lives. I believe in the rights of victims. And I do feel that if you believe in something badly enough, you can make a difference...