Independent Citizen Advocacy : The Past and The , Prospects

Franklin Zimring (1988), a consistently skeptical social observer, discussing these local advocacy groups says, “,. the mobilization by the groups] of public opinion has been partially responsible for the increased prominence of drunk driving as a public policy issue” (p. 374), and goes on to say, “My guess is that citizen action groups are a more important explanation [than others] of the passage of legislation in the 1980s” (p. 380). Finally, Mark Wolfson (1988) concluded in his systematic evaluation of the effects of local advocacy that the efforts of these groups positively affected State legislative initiatives and “may have [had] some influence on fatalities” (p. 9).