Mothers Against Drunk Driving Case Study

The MADD campaign (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) encourages young people to prevent drunk driving from occurring. Often times when we glance at the news, we’re constantly hearing about someone who has been killed in a car accident only because the driver was incapable of his or her actions and decided to take a risk on that choice without realizing that something could happen. The types of behavior individuals expand to society dictates how others might interact with one another. The MADD campaign should encourage showing the risks of driving under the influence in person instead on just social media alone because they should have the advantage of living in a fair and safe environment with regulations that can benefit them towards the future.

Social problems that are directly changed by a structural change of behavior can target the attention of young audiences. Once young people in the world recognize something that should be improved, chances are they are going to enact social

change to happen. As we all know, Epstein evaluated different approaches of two programs, LoveLife and Uganda, to gain a close view of how effective the benefits they were providing to the young people in South Africa were and to determine if they were trustworthy. According to Epstein, she defined “the cool effect” as “the influence that a small number of opinion leaders can have on the norms and behavior of large numbers of their peers.” (155) The MADD campaign balances “the cool effect” by displaying young audiences media coverage so they can view the reality behind drunk driving and teaching them how to care for one another in society. If there is nothing to visualize or consider about, then more lives are going to be placed in jeopardy.
As the MADD campaign is concerned, on their website, they share stories of victims that were involved in drunk driving incidents. One of the images they displayed was an incident on July 9, 2011 when a seven year old girl, Xitclalli “Chilli” Vaszquez was injured by a drunk driver after spending the day at the mall and developed paralysis in parts of her body. Therefore, she has to sit in a wheelchair. This image sets an example of direct approach and the cool effect because when young audiences view the image and comprehends her story, they are going to be in complete shock because now they will have an idea of what they should do and what they shouldn’t do. They are going to develop so much fear and devastation that they might want to limit anything they do outside in the world because they know there are loved ones that are looking out for them, such as their families and friends.
Furthermore, the MADD campaign have a mission of discouraging young people from taking action on making choices that leads to risky behavior based on the direct and indirect information presented. This situation causes them to be harmed in many ways. The MADD campaign can encourage young people to become a participant in social activism in various ways. They need to face the fact that they should focus on the community rather than just certain individuals alone. As we all know, in Vaid’s essay, she was stating how she became involved in different groups to create a more fair society for individuals in order for them to be treated equal. According to Vaid, “The only reason big changes happen is when people like you and me decide to fight for things to change, when we take action to make things different.” (431) There are times when people just expect to receive anything they want instead of taking action about it or giving credit. People can’t assume that anything will eventually end up better if they don’t at least attempt to put in effort into something. Imagine the melancholy some families have to go through just because their loved ones were harmed into a situation that could’ve been solved in a quick manner.
In one of the MADD campaign’s videos, the executive director, Abigal Nickell, was mentioning on screen about how she was involved with the Honolulu Police Department to end drunk driving in order to reduce car accidents.

The team put on an event called “Tie One On for Safety” where drivers tie on a ribbon onto to their car to encourage themselves to be responsible for the choices that they are making whenever dealing with this situations. She basically choose to put on this event around holiday season only because people tend to get excessively excited about seeing who they want to see and having the free time to throw parties they want that they may not be considerate about how safe their decisions are. Around the nighttime, the Honolulu Police officers would set out road blockers to prevent not only the safety on the road, but to monitor the way people drive. Anyone can state that they are a safe driver when in reality anything unexpected can happen in one blink of an

eye.
Moreover, the MADD campaign is willing to increase more volunteers and staff in order for their plans to become effective. When teamwork is present, more tasks are able to get done in a fast pace rather than just leaving it all up to one person alone to do. Otherwise, nothing will ever get done and their campaign won’t receive any support and consider it useless. According to Vaid, “Social activism is all about optimism, even when you lose.” (431) Once people gain the confidence of adjusting certain changes into something, chances are peoples’ lives will become less complicated. People should become participants in certain organizations or groups as Vaid stated that she did. It could cause other people around the world to explore the issue more seriously than they might have done previously. They could change their minds and distinguish habits that they should change and the choices that may seem tolerable should just remain in its position.
On the MADD campaign’s Youtube channel, there was a video they posted of an event called “Walk Like MADD”, which is a walk-a-thon event across the United States that volunteers and sponsors can participate in order to not only allow individuals to remain living in a healthy lifestyle, but also to help the MADD campaign put an end to drunk driving. As I was viewing the video, there were scenes of people hugging and feeling sorrow for one another, waving hands in the air as they were walking in a group, and cheering for the best that can happen. In the video, they were stating how people can walk while remembering a life that was a lost or can walk with hope that a life can be saved soon. They also mentioned that no matter how fast or slow the pace of the walking is, you can lead others towards the right direction of making appropriate choices. Once people watch the video, they might jump into action and spread the word, whether if it applies to them or not.
As we all know, in Savage’s essay, According to Savage, “You can come out, you can move away, and maybe, if the damage we’ve done isn’t too severe, you can recover and build a life for yourself.” (429)
The best technique that can prevent drunk driving from happening is being more connected to people around their community. The fact that some people don’t even keep in contact with their neighbors about a problem that they are unknown about is a serious issue because it will only make things worse. It wouldn’t be solved in the proper manner. If no individual is receiving some sort of treatment to benefit their needs, then they can end up living in an unhealthy lifestyle and experience more fatal accidents that can become more life threatening to them. In order for drunk driving to be prevented, young people should escape from discussions that others may be having that can lead them to the wrong direction. If the MADD campaign just only focused on brainstorming prevention methods without showing what people face with while driving under the influence, then people are not going to be willing to change their attitudes and continue their same behavior.