Her 13-year-old daughters tragic death in a drunk driving accident in 1980 prompted Candy Lightner to form Mothers Against Drunk Driving, or MADD, a non-profit organization in the United States and other countries.

The organization began to grow rapidly in 1983 when a film on Lightner was aired on television, making MADD a household name. It tasted its most cherished success with the imposition of a 1984 federal law that asked states to raise the minimum legal purchase and possession (but not the drinking age) to 21 or lose federal highway funding. Once the United States Supreme Court upheld the law in 1987, every state fell in line.

In 1990, MADD launched its ""20 by 2000"" plan to reduce by 20% the proportion of traffic fatalities that are alcohol-related by 2000. In fact, this came three years early in 1997. In 1991, MADD released its first Rating the States report in which it graded the states in their progress again drunk driving. Since then, Rating the States has been released four times. MADDs National Board of Directors in 1999 unanimously voted to change the organizations mission statement and include the prevention of underage drinking, whether or not the drinking was associated with driving.

Since the establishment of the organization, it has played a key role in getting thousands of anti-drunk driving laws passed. It also helped popularize the use of ""designated drivers.""

In recent times, MADD lobbied hard to reduce the legal limit for blood alcohol from BAC .10 to BAC .08. Eventually in 2000, this standard was passed by Congress, and by 2005, every state had an illegal .08 BAC limit.

MADD has successfully advocated, and still advocates, laws for more stringent punishment of offenders of laws against driving under the influence, as well as laws against drinking and driving.