My Life as a Pit Bull

This is the story of how America’s first victims’ rights organization was born 25 years ago. There is a common misconception that this movement began in California under the leadership of Candy Lightner, but the story really began two and a half years earlier in upstate New York.

The story begins with the death of two teenagers, Karen and Timothy Morris, who were killed in Schenectady by a drunk driver. “Can you imagine having your only children gone forever for no reason? Without warning? No more planning dinners, no grandchildren, no happy celebrations or shopping trips. A vast void. No child or grandchild to hug.”

This was the reaction of Doris Aiken as she read of the tragedy in her local newspaper. Stunned, she called the District Attorney to ask if the drunken driver had lost his license or his freedom.

She could hardy believe his response. “No, we don’t take away licenses or put people in jail. He didn’t mean to do it and he probably feels bad about it.” he said. “You shouldn’t get involved in this. I hope that you will tell the victims if they call that I don’t represent them. I represent the people. If they want to know anything they should get a lawyer. I hope they won’t be vengeful.”

In the weeks that followed, Doris Aiken found that her experience was the norm for how drunk driving cases were handled in New York. Appalled that someone had not addressed this issue, she decided to take responsibility for changing how drunk drivers and their victims are treated in the legal system.

When she began, she had no idea of the difficulties that were ahead. “What I thought would be a six-month research project to help the Morris family ended up robbing me of all my free time and discretionary funds over the next 25 years.” By February of 1978, Doris Aiken had officially launched the nation’s first victims’ right advocacy organization, RID (Remove Intoxicated Drivers). In the next two years, public officials soft on drunk driving suddenly became aware of this new organization.

In the Capital District area, two judges were defeated, as Democrats were elected to the bench for the first time since 1924. The whole system of plea-bargaining was about to undergo drastic changes and by 1980 the crusade reached the state house in Albany. As RID galvanized public opinion, 13 DWI reform bills were passed, changing forever how drunk driving cases would be handled in New York.

Although drunk driving legislation continued to be the primary focus of RID, the organization provided leadership in other areas of alcohol-related problems, particularly as these problems involved young people.

The most notable areas of their involvement were in providing support for raising the national legal drinking age from 18 to 21, and in research to better understand the impact of binge drinking on the college campus where deaths from alcohol poisoning had reached record levels.

If all this is true, they why haven’t we heard more about RID’s role in addressing these issues? Anybody who reads the papers knows that it has been MADD, not RID who was behind the establishment of victims’ rights and reforming DWI laws across the U.S., right?

The reason RID has taken a back seat to MADD as far as national publicity is concerned is revealed in this new book. A major part of the reason has to do with the widespread influence of the alcohol industry, both directly and indirectly.

Long before the MADD concept grew out of the tragic death of Candy Lightner’s daughter in a drunk driving crash, RID had 15 state chapters, representing all major metropolitan areas in New York except New York City. And, when the MADD program was just getting started, local RID chapters far outnumbered MADD local programs.

But in order to get national attention, an organization needs media recognition. Doris Aiken was aware of this, but her background as a TV host also made her aware of the power of media exposure when it came to alcohol advertising, and its relationship to drinking and driving. Doris spoke out for banning alcohol ads on radio and TV, and called for counter-advertising. Sure it made sense and later research proved her correct, but the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), along with the alcohol industry, saw RID as a threat to their industry. The NAB instituted a blackout on RID, in favor of MADD which, at the time, appeared to go along with the industry line that alcohol ads did nothing more than urge present drinkers to buy competing brands.

The alcohol industry also targeted MADD, getting their representatives on the MADD board as well as donating $180,000 to MADD. The industry’s influence even reached the point finally where Candy Lightner went to work for the alcohol industry lobbyists working against lowering the DWI entry level to 0.08%.

Without national recognition, RID eventually lost out to MADD as far as the public’s perception of who was leading the DWI crusade, and while MADD went on a record-breaking fund-raising binge through telemarketing and direct mail solicitation, RID had to struggle for every dollar.

So is all this actually an internal struggle between MADD and RID? “We are all working toward the same goal,” says Doris Aiken, “but there are some differences in the organizations.” She went on to explain how RID locals get to retain 90% of the funds they raise, while the funds raised by local MADD groups are owned by the national office, and can be called in on demand.

An example of this policy is cited in Aiken’s book from the MADD chapter in Las Vegas, which raised $129,000 for MADD locally in 1997. In return, the local chapter received a check from the national office in the amount of $1.29 as their share.

Although this is not typical of the current national-local split, this is still a problem for MADD local fundraisers.

The big difference between RID and MADD, according to Doris Aiken, is that RID had avoided the institutional approach in favor of helping local groups become independent advocates.

That’s only a small part of what you will read in Doris Aiken’s new book, and we encourage our readers to make this a priority for reading this summer, as Aiken takes on Geraldo Rivera, Montel, and other luminaries.

“My Life as a Pit Bull” is published by the Writers Club Press, which is an imprint of iUniverse, Inc. You can order through your local book store or as an e-book for $6.00 at www.iuniverse.com. Proceeds from the book benefit RID

Reprinted from Monday Morning Report,
June 23, 2003, Volume 27, Number 12.