Michael D. Barnes

What happened to the Lambs and Lightners were not isolated incidents or mere accidents. In those years, 28,000 others were killed and one million injured in alcohol-related traffic crashes in our country - averaging 78 deaths and 2,800 injuries each day.

As a Member of Congress from Montgomery County at that time, I was shocked to learn that drunken driving was the most frequently committed violent crime in the nation, and little was being done to combat this neglected national disgrace.

In October 1980, I convened a news conference on Capitol Hill to bring together these two moms and little Laura Lamb to launch the national MADD movement and the war on drunken driving. Senator Claiborne Pell and I announced introduction of legislation to pressure the states to crack down on drunken driving, and we joined with these first two MADD moms to call for a blue ribbon presidential commission on drunken driving.

Little did I know that day that MADD and other victim groups, like Remove Intoxicated Drivers (RID), would spark one of the most powerful grassroots movements of the next two decades.

Nearly one year later, at the behest of an overwhelming bipartisan majority of Congress, President Reagan appointed the Presidential Commission on Drunk Driving, on which I had the honor to serve. Our number one recommendation was passage of federal legislation to require the states to raise the minimum drinking age law to 21.

In spite of his strongly held state's rights views, President Reagan recognized the need for federal leadership in the fight against drunken driving. It was a proud moment the day we stood with the President in the Rose Garden where he signed this legislation to uniformly make 21 the law of our land. This law has since prevented an estimated 1,000 highway deaths every year.

I am pleased that work of President Reagan's panel has been carried on by its successor organization, the National Commission Against Drunk Driving. In the past two decades, NCADD has worked to bring together disparate organizations - victim activists, law enforcement, safety advocates, and insurance, automotive and alcohol industry groups - to find common ground solutions to reduce the senseless slaughter on our highways.

In the past two decades we have seen how victims and their supporters have moved the hidden horrors of drunken driving from the back-page obituaries to the front-page headlines and into the nation's social consciousness.

Twenty years ago there was no national uniform 21 drinking age law to erase the blood borders between states. There were no zero tolerance teen drinking and driving laws, now the law in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. There were no federal incentive grant programs to reward states that get tough on drunken driving. The Supreme Court had not yet ruled sobriety checkpoints constitutional and cleared the way for most states to now use this powerful enforcement tool. And, there were no .08 blood alcohol concentration laws.

Twenty years ago, who had ever heard the term, designated driver? How many communities had sober ride programs? And how many friends were stopping their friends from driving drunk?

The theme of the NCADD's conference in Washington, D.C. this week is "Pride in the Past, Focused on the Future." There is good cause to celebrate the stunning 40 percent drop in DUI deaths between 1980 and 1996. Today, the daily DUI death toll has been cut to 44. Forty-four too many, but 34 less than the day war was declared against drunken driving two decades ago. But there is cause for alarm. The gains have been replaced by complacency as drunken driving deaths have stalled at 16,000 for each of the past five years. In fact, last year they rose slightly.

The message seems to have reached sympathetic social drinkers, but hardcore drunken drivers pose our most difficult challenge. It is time for our nation and its elected officials, judges, prosecutors, police chiefs and concerned citizens to recommit to waging a winning war against drunken driving.

Twenty-one years ago, Laura Lamb, who lived only until age six, and Cari Lightner, woke up a nation to the drunken driving epidemic. An estimated 180,000 deaths have been prevented since that day in October 1980 when their mothers joined forces at the U.S. Capitol to say "enough." May Laura and Cari's memories and their mothers' pioneering efforts serve as a reminder that still today none of us are immune to the drunken driving epidemic.