Crusader Found Her Cause in Tragedies

Three times the telephone rang for Linda Hull, each with the same awful message: A daughter had been killed in an accident caused by drunks barely old enough to drive.

“I remember the phone calls,” she said. “Just statements of fact. I was sitting on the other end of the phone . . . it’s so cold when you find out that way.”

Painful reminders abound for Hull at holiday time, when police keep close watch over roads and in bars to make sure underage drinkers aren’t being served.

The losses broke her heart but not her spirit. She has become a crusader in a state that consistently ranks in the top five in the number of underage drinkers involved in deadly car crashes.

The focus of her efforts is a loophole in state law allowing people under 21--and as young as 18--to go into bars and lounges, although it is illegal for them to buy alcohol.

In 1995, the latest year for which statistics are available, Louisiana had 116 deadly car crashes involving people ages 18, 19 and 20. Forty percent of those crashes were alcohol-related.

The loophole that lets underage people go into bars makes it nearly impossible to enforce the law aimed at keeping them from drinking, police say.

“It’s foolish for us to have laws on the books that are unenforceable,” said Col. Ronnie Jones of the Louisiana State Police. “It also sends out a bad message. We need to be clear what we expect of people.”

Underage drinkers said it’s easy to get around the law--particularly in New Orleans where college students are attracted by the French Quarter and watering holes near campuses.

“They let you in because you’re 18. And once you’re in, you’re in,” said Mary Anderson, 18, a Tulane University student from Chicago. “All you have to do is tell someone to get you a drink.”

“Nobody thinks of the drinking age as being 21,” said fellow student Ryan Loskarn of Baltimore, who is 19.

The penalty for serving minors is a maximum six months in jail and a $100 fine.

Jones is chairman of a DWI task force that wants the loophole closed, and Gov. Mike Foster has said he will consider asking the Legislature to make the change during a special session in the spring.

The focus on young people and drinking has sharpened in the state since a Louisiana State University fraternity student died after a night of binge drinking in August. At LSU, three-quarters of students 20 and younger drink in bars and restaurants, officials said.

Hull knows the sting of statistics on drinking.

A Texas car crash involving a drunken driver took the life of her oldest daughter, Renee, 20, in March 1987. Five months later, Hull’s 17-year-old stepdaughter was killed by a drunken driver. Hull doesn’t give details at the request of the girl’s mother.

In April 1991, Hull’s youngest daughter, Leslie, who had just turned 21, was hit and killed by a drunken driver as she walked in Lake Charles.

Hull’s husband, her surviving child--a 19-year-old son--and her hectic schedule are her lifeline.

Once an interior designer, she volunteers full time for Louisiana’s chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Drivers. She lobbies the Legislature for changes in Louisiana’s DWI laws.

It’s still painful for her to tell her story.

“There’s a choice,” she said. “You can go further into a depression, or you can take whatever life you have left and make whatever difference you can. That’s the path I took. It’s a path that feels good to me. I am trying to do something about the problem.”