No More Victims: Mothers Against Drunk Drivers

[Jaunty Guitar Music]

Mike: Welcome, everybody. This is Avoiding the Addiction Affliction, brought to you by Westwords Consulting and the Kenosha County Substance Use Disorder Coalition. I'm Mike McGowan.

Mike: No more victims. At Mothers Against Drunk Drivers, the goal is ending impaired driving. Forever, for good! Our guests today are Erin Payton, who is Director of Mission Operations for Mothers Against Drunk Drivers, provides support and guidance to about, I think I got this right, about 20 percent of the country, and Karl Krull, a Program Specialist for MADD in Madison, Wisconsin.

Mike: Welcome to both of you. How are you?

Erin: We're great.

Karl: Thanks for having us.

Mike: I'm really appreciative, not only of you being here, but of the work that you do. Erin, who's not familiar with MADD, right? But let's just do it anyway. Since the inception of MADD in 1980, we've seen a huge decline. We're not there yet.

Mike: But a huge decline in drunk driving fatalities. Take us a bit of, on a history lesson of MADD.

Erin: Absolutely. MADD was founded in 1980, like you said, by a woman named Candace Lightner, whose 13 year old daughter was killed in an impaired driving crash at the time we would have set a drunk driving crash.

Erin: And so she did what a lot of people do. She took her pain and turned it into a passion and slowly across the country. Chapters of it's had many different names right now. We're Mothers Against Drunk Driving or MADD. And and now we're a national organization. Like you said, we've got people working in almost every single state in the country.

Erin: Our mission is pretty simple. We want to end impaired driving. We want to support the victims of these violent crimes. And we want to help prevent underage alcohol and substance use. And that is what Karl can talk about later. But as you said, in 1980, the numbers were not great. They were hovering around 20,000 fatalities every year.

Erin: We got it down to about 10,000 in 2019. And then, unfortunately, the numbers have creeped back up a bit. There's not a specific one reason why, but they are not trending in the right direction right now. And in 2022, nationally there was about 13,500 people killed. And when we say impaired driving, we do mean drugged and drunk driving.

Erin: But drugged driving isn't always as easy to define. So the numbers that we're quoting, the 13,528, is specifically drunk driving. And if we were to include more numbers, obviously, I think the, or if we really got a really good grasp, the numbers would probably be higher. So we do have our work cut out for us, but we are working hard every single day to bring those numbers back down.

Mike: You know, I'm, I'm older. And I remember when you all first got started that one of the pushes was to have a representative in almost every courtroom where there was a case where there was a victim. And as somebody who lived through this, right, and the gentleman who killed a friend of mine got no time.

Mike: Right. That was tremendously effective. Do you still do that? Do you do courtroom monitoring?

Erin: In certain states, we do. In the state of Illinois, we have six dedicated court monitors who monitor about 21 counties. Of course, the state of Illinois has 102 counties. We also, so we're not everywhere, but they Illinois Department of Transportation has identified, you know, like the hot counties that have maybe a higher prevalence of impaired driving.

Erin: So we're there, and we also work with volunteers. In Wisconsin, we are not there yet, but we are hoping to be adding some court monitors in 2025. We're working on it. Karl and I have a plan in place along with the rest of our team to get that started.

Mike: You know, Karl, in 2022, I think your stats say about, around 14,000, I'll round up, right died in impaired driving, that's one every half an hour, a third of all highway deaths one every two minutes, your stats say, somebody is injured by an impaired driver, those costs aren't born just by the person who's doing the accident, we all bear the cost, don't we?

Karl: Yeah, everyone bears the costs. There's the main focus on the fatalities, but there are a lot more people who are injured in these crashes. Like in Wisconsin, there were 184 fatal crashes involving impaired drivers, but there were 3,500 people who were injured, some severely. So it's increased medical costs, increased insurance costs, and then the mental trauma, like you were saying, it sticks with you forever.

Mike: It does.

Karl: I was in court last year for a sentencing supporting one of our victim families, and it was a family who lost their 20 year old son. His 19 year old brother was severely injured and their best friend who was about the same age was injured as well. And it had been a full year and a half after the crash.

Karl: And they were still both recovering physically and mentally. They had to drop out of college and had just started up that semester after basically a year and a half of recovery. So it's time lost. It's people lost.

Mike: You were talking about where maybe causes, we don't know what they are.

Mike: I don't think I'm going to be the only one to say this since I drive a lot. People are driving like idiots now, just, just by themselves, let alone if they have a substance in their body, right?

Erin: Right. We are actually working with the Milwaukee County...

Karl: vision Zero.

Erin: Well, Vision Zero, which is in Milwaukee, the city of Milwaukee, and then also the Milwaukee County Department of Transportation. They are doing a huge, huge, amazing study that they've asked us to partner with them on because Milwaukee County's numbers are some of the highest in the nation, actually, of crashes in general.

Erin: So, in general crashes, like, even higher than impaired driving. So what I like about that, what I love about that is how they are taking responsibility for it. They're doing really, really good research to figure out why are people driving the way they're driving? What can we do to change that both behaviorally?

Erin: So to change people's thoughts on how they drive, but to also make the roads themselves safer. I think that is a really cool dual avenue and I'm getting the road safer. And but you're right. People are, you know, we're saying this anecdotally, right? So there's no...

Mike: Yes, right.

Erin: Statistics behind it, but I think just from being on the roads and I think that goes with the whole reason why the numbers are going up.

Erin: And a lot of people attribute it to the shutdown and different behaviors on the roads, but really there's not one reason why.

Mike: Well, alcohol consumption went way up during the shutdown. And so, you know, I think most people, if I get on the freeway right now, within five minutes, I'm passed by somebody going over 90 miles an hour.

Mike: That used to happen occasionally. Happens every day. Now, speed and drugs don't match very well.

Mike: Karl, at one point, I read something that, in Milwaukee County, that after midnight, After 11 p. m. on a Friday or Saturday night, the percentage of impaired drivers on the freeway system is huge.

Mike: People are drinking and still getting in their car.

Karl: Yeah, if you look at the Wisconsin Department of Transportation charts out like when people are pulled over and arrested for drunk or impaired driving. And it's a curve where, oh, from midnight to like 4 a. m. is actually the highest time. And then it droops down when people are actually starting to go to work.

Karl: Yeah, and then just slowly ticks back up after lunch, but it's late in the night. People are out there on the roads, and there are generally less people on the roads, so people think it's safer, but it's not. If you feel different, you're going to drive different.

Mike: Yeah. I'm going to ask both of you this, Erin, I'll start with you.

Mike: Why did you get involved with MADD? I assume there's a story.

Erin: There actually is not a story before I started, but since I've started at MADD, I have been touched by in here. The reason I got involved was I had been in nonprofits for a really long time. And I was looking to work somewhere with a strong mission and a national, a larger focus.

Erin: And so when I saw this job posting, there's something just connected with my heart and my brain and my passion and... The best decision I've made because the last two years have been pretty... Obviously, our job is very heartbreaking because we talk to victims every day, but we really grow to care so much about these families and the passion that they have just fuels our passion to make a change.

Erin: So that is the reason why I got involved. Karl?

Karl: Yeah, I'm similar. I haven't, I wasn't directly impacted beforehand, but. It's a good mission. My work before, I mean, I felt like a cog in a machine. And here, like, I feel like I'm making a direct impact every single day with everything I do. Helping people and trying to prevent future crashes.

Mike: You know, you both mentioned impaired driving. I was correct when I said Mothers Against Drunk Driving. That's still your... right?

Karl: Yep, Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

Mike: But we had a lady on a couple years ago on this podcast who does the impaired driving classes in one of the counties in Wisconsin. And she said five years ago it was almost all alcohol.

Mike: Today, it's about half marijuana. Half her classes are marijuana. So we're not talking about just alcohol. We're talking about all the drugs across the system, including cannabis.

Erin: Correct. Karl can probably talk better about this with what he does with his youth presentations, but I, in Illinois, do I host victim impact panels.

Erin: So that's probably similar to the person you spoke with, where if you are a first or second time offender in the state of Illinois, a lot of your sentencing, you do have to take this class. And we don't ask when people attend our class, if it was alcohol or drugs or polysubstance, which is obviously a combination.

Mike: Right.

Erin: We have definitely changed our messaging over the last several years to more focus, you know, predominantly on alcohol. Now we really do focus on both and talk about both in all of our messaging.

Karl: Yeah. Like I do high school, middle school presentations. So going into health classes, talking to the kids about drugs and alcohol. And yeah, it's been a big shift that it's not just alcohol, we focus on cannabis, on prescription drugs how they make you feel different.

Karl: And if you feel different, you're going to drive different.

Mike: You know, Karl, I also work with youth a lot. I'm in about 140 high schools a year. And it must be encouraging to you. This is a different generation than previous generations. They do click it, right? They put their seatbelt on.

Mike: They use Uber. They have the apps for Lyft and Uber on their phone. They seem to be making better decisions. That must make both of you feel fairly good.

Karl: Yeah, I mean, I go in not as many as 140, although I'd like to get up there schools every year. And I really think the exposure helps because I go into health classes and they get maybe a week or two of alcohol and drug education.

Karl: And yes, they get the, oh, this is what it does to your body and to your brain. But. If you can make that real life connection of here is what alcohol and drugs will do to you and then here's how it'll affect you if you get behind the wheel, I think it really does click with them. And with a week or two of class, they can't focus on everything, so this little bit of information really helps, I think.

Mike: I think so, too. Erin, talk about your group's initiatives. You have quite a bit going on besides just monitoring what happens.

Erin: Yeah, we do. So we talked about court monitoring and it just to get a little bit more clarification on that. You know, we've got the law enforcement who are arresting people for driving impaired.

Erin: But you know, they have their court trial and what we need to do is see that the sentencing is both consistent and fair to the crime and that people aren't just kind of being let off with a, you know, what we would say a slap on the wrist or something like that. So that's what court monitors do.

Erin: Karl is part of our underage drinking and substance abuse group, and they go into schools and they talk to parents and they do a lot of community events. Our victim services staff is small, but mighty. And so they, they work with victims, both if the survivors of the crashes or the families left behind, and they help them, I say, from crash to forever, because like we've talked about, the pain never goes away.

Erin: So, they help them through support groups, through writing their victim impact statements, all of that stuff. We do law enforcement recognition. We are doing one in Wisconsin on October 8th. We're really excited about that in conjunction with the Wisconsin Alcohol Policy Project conference.

Erin: And then we do them in different states. We do Saturation Saturday, which is the fourth Saturday in August, where we work with law enforcement to show up on the streets and let people know we're going to be out there. And the reason behind that is the next weekend is Labor Day weekend, and that's when a lot of fatalities happen.

Erin: This exact region started an initiative which is recreation vehicle safety, and that is for ATVs, boating, and snowmobiles, and it's a six state kind of coalition, so it's Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, South Dakota, North Dakota, so kind of the areas you think of that have a lot of recreation vehicles. Because people don't think about that always when they're going out on, they don't think that they're also vehicles. And there's a lot of drinking on ATVs, there's a lot of drinking on boats, there's a lot of drinking on snowmobiles, and those do lead to fatalities, especially in the state of Wisconsin.

Erin: So we are very strong about that. So, that's just a tiny little tip of the iceberg of what we do. But we are working so hard with such a small team. We rely on our volunteers and our community partners, and they are absolutely wonderful.

Mike: Karl, you also talk about interlocks on vehicles.

Karl: Yeah, basically you plug them into your car, and if you've been convicted of a certain offense, it really varies from state to state. It's blow and go, so you have to blow into it, and it checks to see if there's alcohol in your system, in your breath. And if there is, it won't start, and if there is none, then you get to go.

Karl: So we've been trying in Wisconsin to get those on first offense. So first time OWI convictions where you have to install one of those to make sure you're driving, you're being safe.

Erin: Yeah, right now in Wisconsin, it's either second offense or first offense if the blood alcohol content is .15.

Erin: And we're trying to get it for all offenders. So regardless of how many times, or what your blood alcohol content is, you're going to get it put in. The other thing we're doing is we have been probably the biggest advocate for the HALT Act. The HALT Act is, has been passed. Nationally, and there's a couple more hoops we have to jump through to get it actually in action with through NHTSA, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and that is going to be passive technology that will go in every single car manufactured after a certain time.

Erin: And that will then, instead of having to blow into a device, basically, it will be not allow anybody to drive drunk. We're very excited about it. It's something that is, because it's passive, and it's multiple points, it won't be triggered incorrectly, if that makes sense. You have to kind of pass through all of the trigger points for the car to be disabled safely.

Erin: But we're very excited about that. I mean, that's going to be such, such an amazing win, and it's going to make everyone so much safer on the roads.

Mike: You know, you talked about having somebody first time, first time offender, and every now and then we see articles, especially here in Wisconsin fifth time, sixth time, ninth time driving under the influence person, and finally they hurt somebody, right, which is what gets the attention.

Mike: What changes would you two like to see in the legal system?

Erin: Well, it's already there. After your fourth offense in the state of Wisconsin, you get your license taken away for at least 10 years, sometimes forever and definitely for 10 years. So that's already there, but it's not stopping people from driving.

Erin: The only thing that's going to stop people from driving is to not allow them to drive their car drunk. And so we're already working on that. And that's really what our focus is because the, Wisconsin already has it in place, where, you know, but taking away a piece of plastic is not taking away their ability to drive.

Erin: We do know there are some people, we work with a family that are, they're really working on that, this specific thing, and they have a family member who doesn't drive after having their license taken away, but what they say is, well, he's, he's one of the few. Because people are obviously, to your point, Mike, if they have a sixth offense, they shouldn't be driving anyway.

Erin: So, the only way to stop them from doing that is to put technology in place that, because there's a case in Illinois where a man had was not allowed to drive and he had an ignition interlock on his car. Well, he took his daughter's car. He got drunk and he hit someone head on on I-55 and killed them.

Erin: So everything was done correctly through the law. They did everything right, but if he can still take another car that works, he can still kill someone. So the law is one thing. But technology is another.

Mike: Karl you have a lot of events that you sponsor all over the country, but locally you have something coming up on September 28th, which I think is just right around the corner, right?

Mike: At Vilas Park in Madison

Karl: Yeah, T minus nine days, I think. Yeah. So next Saturday starting at 9 AM September 28th, we're hosting our Walk Like MADD walk fundraiser. And we're just bringing together survivors, their families, interested community members, people who have been affected, anyone who cares really in Vilas Park, in Madison, right by the zoo.

Karl: And we're going to be walking and honoring those who have been lost and those who've suffered.

Mike: That's great. I'll put a link to that at the end of the podcast. But for those who are listening how do they go about registering for that or showing up for it?

Karl: Yeah. If you go to walklikemadd.org/madison it'll take you right to our page. We've got how to sign up there. You can join teams to honor someone who's been affected and fundraise from there, yeah.

Mike: And Erin, you have a lot of those events around the country.

Erin: Yeah, this region, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, has five walks. And we're really excited because this is the first year in at least a very long time that Wisconsin has had a walk.

Erin: So we're just so happy to be there and talking out loud. I mean, it's such a beautiful location. And if there's going to be a lot of people who are just going to pass by and see it, you know, anytime we can amplify our message and honor loved ones and of course, raise the needed money to keep us going is really great.

Erin: If you can't attend the walk, you can still go to the website and donate. So we would love either one of those things.

Mike: Well, because like you said, you rely a great deal on a large, large volunteer network.

Erin: Yeah, we really do. And thanks to Karl's hard work, we are building that network back up in Wisconsin.

Erin: We could always use more and that can be anything from helping us well, we do take volunteer court monitors, you could help speak at schools, you can help volunteer at our events. There's all sorts of things people can do to, to help us out.

Mike: And Karl, if somebody wanted to do that in the state of Wisconsin, do they just get a hold of you?

Karl: Yeah, they can get a hold of me. You can go to madd.org/wisconsin, I think is the official webpage for us, and it'll have my contact information there. Or it'll have the regional, you can do there's the regional email that basically goes to my inbox. Which I'm blanking on right now.

Mike: I'll put a link to it on the podcast. I'll let you both leave with this. You've made so much progress. We're in so much of a better place than we were in 1980 when MADD first started, but we're not there yet. What do you hope we see in the next 10, 15 years?

Karl: I mean, hopefully in 10 or 15 years with this technology, we won't have a job. That's the goal. The goal is no more victims. If I work myself out of a job, good. If no one is hurt or killed in any impaired driving crashes, then good. Just want to make sure everyone gets home safely.

Erin: Yeah. Karl said it. We, you know, make that joke or whatever it is that I, I'll go work for the American Cancer Society if we can if we can stop this because it is, we call it a 100 percent preventable crime. It never has to happen. I mean, after this podcast ends. It never has to happen at any given second. No one ever has to drive impaired again, no one ever has to get injured again, no one ever has to lose their life again.

Erin: So we just need everyone to care about everyone on the road. And I know that's a really big ask because, you know, we're, as human beings, sometimes a little myopic with what we care about. But if we can just get everybody to just think before they drink. We do not care if you're over the age of 21. If you drink alcohol, go for it.

Erin: There's so many reasons to celebrate and if that includes alcohol in your life, that's great. We just need you to do it responsibly. That's just the number one thing. Just be responsible.

Mike: You know, that's funny, you should say that. A long time ago, one of the alcohol companies had a slogan, and the slogan was, Think when you drink.

Mike: And when I would talk to people, I'd be like, That's a little bit of a misnomer. How about thinking before you drink, as you just said, and maybe you won't drink nearly as much.

Erin: Well, and that's I know we're almost running out of time, but we have a relationship with Anheuser Busch and Uber, and it's The program is called Decide to Ride and the idea is if you don't drive to where you're going, there's no way you can drive impaired home.

Erin: So plan while you're still sober, you're still thinking, make that plan beforehand so that when you are impaired and you're not thinking smartly, there's no way you can make this terrible choice and hurt someone.

Mike: You know, Erin, I know you're in Illinois, but last night my son and I were watching the, uh, the Brewers celebrate a division title. I believe second place are the Cubs. I'm not sure, but um, and...

Erin: So we'll take it.

Mike: And my son said, as you saw the celebration, as you're reflecting, he said, I hope the team and these players are smart enough to have made arrangements to get home, right? As the champagne was up, well, there was more of it up in the air, that probably in their belly.

Mike: But still you don't want people to make a preventable, make a crime out of something that's preventable. And along those lines, for those of you listening, in the time that we've been talking, using the statistics that you've given us, about 15 people have been injured by an impaired driver. That's just in the time we've been talking here.

Mike: I want to thank both of you for your work and for your time for being with us today. And for those of you who are listening, you're welcome to listen anytime. We really enjoy having you here. And until next time please, please stay safe, be smart. And did I say stay safe?