When Donna Kelley's best friend was killed by a 19-year-old drunken driver, she did what thousands of people have done to channel her grief and rage. She formed a chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving.
But 12 years later, the chapter is closing - and not because the drunken-driving problem is solved in Dalton, the town where the chapter is based."For us, the interest just isn't here anymore," Kelley said. "Everybody says we're doing such a great job, but then in the next breath they say, `I don't have time to help.' "
After years of huge success, changing attitudes and laws regarding drunken driving, MADD is losing chapters nationwide. Some claim MADD is a victim of its own success.
The organization's pioneering tactics in grass roots action have shown other groups how to compete for America's social conscience and spirit of volunteerism, drawing potential activists to other causes.
But a bigger problem appears to be the public's belief that the drunken-driving problem, after a long history of neglect, is solved.
Far from it.
Nationwide statistics have been kept since 1982 - two years after California mother Candy Lightner founded MADD - when 25,165 people died from drunken-driving accidents.
Last year, 17,126 people were killed in crashes where alcohol was involved, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. That's a drop of 31 percent in 14 years.
But in recent years, the decrease in alcohol-related traffic fatalities has slowed considerably, and in 1995 fatalities went up for the first time in a decade - a 4 percent increase from 1994 to 1995.
"I can assure you that the 17,000 families that had someone killed by a drunk driver last year don't think the problem's solved," said Katherine Prescott, MADD's national president whose 16-year-old son was killed by a drunken driver in 1981.
More than 1 million Americans - or one every 30 seconds - are injured each year by drunken drivers. Two in every five Americans will be involved in an alcohol-related crash at some time in their lives, according to federal statistics.
"If you look at trends over the last 20 years, we certainly have made progress," said Susan Ryan of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. "But if you look at trends over the last five years, it has stayed pretty much the same."