Reminders Tied With Red Ribbon

If you’ve recently seen a vehicle with a red ribbon tied to the driver’s side, the decoration’s not for holiday cheer--it’s a reminder from Mothers Against Drunk Driving not to drink and drive.

“It’s a visible commitment you’re not going to drink and drive over the holidays because, sadly, the fatalities are higher over the holiday season than the rest of the year,” said Mickey Sadoff, MADD’s national president.

Sadoff, herself a victim of a drunk driver in a 1982 accident that seriously injured her husband Ronald, said fatalities and injuries from traffic accidents caused by drunk drivers are bad enough at any time of the year.

She said in 1987, 23,632 people were killed in the United States in accidents involving drunk drivers and 560,000 people were injured.

“That means that 66 times a day, someone is killed by a drunk driver and almost one person a minute is injured in alcohol-related crashes,” she said.

This is the third year of the red ribbon program for MADD and Sadoff said this year, the group is giving away 20 million red ribbons nationally. “And those are all ribbons cut by somebody’s mother,” she said.

The ribbon program is just one effort to fight drunken driving by MADD, which has about 400 chapters in 49 states (Montana is the lone non-MADD state) with about 1.1 million members. MADD also has chapters in England, New Zealand, Ireland, Canada and other countries.

Besides ribbons adorning private cars, Sadoff said, some truckers, businesses and governments are decorating vehicles to emphasize the message not to drink and drive.

Sadoff said the group tries to work in several areas, including increasing public awareness of drunken driving.

MADD also works on educational efforts for school children and community groups, on legislation and on monitoring the justice system to see how it is handling drunken drivers.

Sadoff said the group has a simple goal: “To get every drunk driver and driver on drugs off the road and to help victims of drunk driving crashes.”