Washington — After decades of activism, anti-drunken driving advocates say the United States is closer than ever to adopting rules that promise to stop a scourge on American roads that kills more than 10,000 people every year.
“We are no longer asking if we can end impaired driving. We are simply now saying when. When is it going to happen?” said Stacey Stuart, CEO of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, at a Tuesday event commemorating the organization’s 45th anniversary.
She paused for a moment before answering her own question: “The answer is now.”
Stuart’s comments came almost four years after Congress directed federal road safety officials to add requirements for advanced anti-drunken driving technology in all new vehicles. The 2021 law — named for a Michigan family killed in a drunken driving crash — was a breakthrough for MADD. And while the group said regulatory progress later slowed under the Biden administration, their hope is stronger under President Donald Trump.
That hope comes from more than 200 sitdowns this week with lawmakers and their staff on Capitol Hill, an hour-long meeting with Trump’s secretary of transportation, and a new “game-changer” commitment from one of the world’s most trusted auto safety groups.
“I’ve been engaged in the fight for six years. I did not choose this battle. It chose me,” said MADD advocate Rana Abbas Taylor of Northville at a Wednesday night vigil on the National Mall featuring speeches from Democratic and Republican lawmakers. “And this is the first time that I’ve been to D.C., and I have felt a type of momentum, or electricity, energy in the air around this law.”
Taylor lost her sister, her brother-in-law and the couple’s three children on the morning of Jan. 6, 2019. The Abbas family was traveling home from a vacation in Florida when they were struck head-on by a wrong-way driver on Interstate 75 in Kentucky at 2:30 a.m. — a fatal crash that sent shockwaves through their southeast Michigan hometown.
The crash killed Rima, 38, Issam Abbas, 42, and their children: Ali, 13, Isabelle, 12, and Giselle, 7. The driver, Joey Lee Bailey of Georgetown, Kentucky, who also died in the crash, had a blood alcohol level nearly four times the legal limit, police said.
The devastating crash sparked U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Ann Arbor, to sponsor the HALT Act, which required the Department of Transportation to prescribe a motor vehicle safety standard for mandatory, in-vehicle technology capable of passively detecting and stopping drunken or impaired driving. The bill’s full title was the Honoring Abbas Family Legacy to Terminate Drunk Driving Act.
Look back: Six years after her family was killed, Northville woman fights to end drunken driving (2024)
Look back: Out of Michigan family’s tragic death, new policy emerges to end drunken driving (2021)
Congress passed the act as part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law enacted in November 2021 under President Joe Biden. The law set a Nov. 15, 2024, goal to finalize standards, but the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration was unable to meet that deadline.
An annual report about the delay satisfied NHTSA’s requirements under the law last year, and the same will be true every year until a final rule takes effect. But Taylor said she is hopeful the wait will end sooner rather than later.
“The writing is not just on the wall. It’s everywhere right now,” she said.
Dingell, a leading voice both for the auto industry and road safety in Washington, said she is optimistic about a clearer roadmap for federal standards taking shape under the Trump administration. The sixth-term congresswoman said she has already spoken to NHTSA administrator nominee Jonathan Morrison about the issue.
“Quite frankly, they may be easier to work with than the last,” said Dingell at the Tuesday event, referencing the Biden administration before cutting herself off. “I’m going to get in trouble because I just want to get it done.”
“He came up to me and said, ‘Can we get this done together?'” she said of Morrison, who faces a U.S. Senate confirmation in the coming weeks. “And we’re going to do it.”
Advocates expressed similar sentiments about the Trump administration. Taylor said that Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy met with her and other advocates for an hour on Wednesday, even though the meeting was only supposed to last 15 minutes.
MADD staff said that no such meeting ever took place with Pete Buttigieg, the DOT head under Biden, but the group did meet with former Deputy Secretary Polly Trottenberg.
Duffy, according to Taylor, listened carefully to advocates’ stories and shared his personal tie to ongoing efforts to end drunken, impaired and distracted driving. Duffy’s wife, Rachel, was involved in a 1996 car crash that killed her boyfriend and another passenger when a driver asleep at the wheel hit her vehicle head-on.
Taylor also said Duffy committed to maintaining “an open and honest line of communication and working with MADD and industry to drive progress.” She added: “We must remain persistent and remain engaged, but there is a genuine opportunity to partner with Duffy and his team. … This is huge. It’s incredible.”
Stuart, the MADD CEO, thanked Morrison and NHTSA Chief Counsel Peter Simshauser for attending the group’s Wednesday vigil. She called their attendance “quite, quite, quite, quite significant.”
Amid MADD’s energetic two-day lobbying push, one of the nation’s most respected auto safety groups unveiled a major development for the adoption of anti-drunken driving technology in new vehicles during an industry roundtable.
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety announced that it would add impairment detection to the criteria for its influential TOP SAFETY PICK+ award in the coming years.
“The bottom line is that the technology is here. It’s ready to be implemented. Some of it already is being implemented in Europe,” IIHS President David Harkey told The Detroit News. “It’s not a decision of waiting on the technology to get here. You can’t use that as an excuse anymore.”
The technology Harkey referred to has taken two main forms: Camera-based impaired driver detection and alcohol detection through either breath or touch-based systems.
The voluntary European New Car Assessment Programme, a similarly trusted source for vehicle safety ratings, began emphasizing impaired or distracted driver detection in its model year 2026 criteria. It is all but impossible to achieve a five-star rating without a driver status monitoring system.
Harkey estimated that the similar U.S. criteria could take effect by the 2030 model year, about four calendar years from now.
Stephanie Manning, MADD’s head of government affairs, told The News that the IIHS announcement is a huge step for advocates: “It is a game changer, and it is going to result in action. It is going to result in us — in victims and survivors — seeing the fruits of their labor and seeing this technology show up in new cars.”
She continued: “While we’re waiting for this (HALT Act) regulation to be written, the Insurance Institute is leading. They are sending a huge signal to the industry and the world, saying drunk driving prevention is a top priority, and if you want the highest rating on your vehicle, you’re going to have to work with us to figure out how to solve this problem via advanced technology. And that’s entirely possible.”
The IIHS criteria would raise the financial stakes of drunken driving prevention for automakers, through their competition for safety-minded consumers, and for insurance companies, through their calculation of premiums based on vehicle safety features.
Simshauser, NHTSA’s chief counsel, applauded the partnership between IIHS and MADD, and the latter’s 45 years of advocacy, during remarks at the Tuesday anniversary event.
“This is an amazing organization,” he said. “I am seasoned enough to remember when I was in high school and college, drinking and driving was a socially accepted part of the culture of central Illinois, where I grew up and in a lot of other places, too. You guys have flipped the switch on that.”
Simshauser continued: “There’s a lot of progress that remains to be made, but so much has been made bringing the 20,000 a year impaired fatality number down from the 1980s to a much lower — still unacceptable, unacceptably high — number, but much lower than it would have been. So thank you for that.”
The transportation lawyer highlighted areas of commonality between NHTSA and MADD, though he hinted at differences: “We’re going to agree on 90% of everything. There’s 10% that we have to keep working on and talking about, and we look forward to doing that.”
Simhauser pointed out the groups’ shared commitment to law enforcement, and he commended MADD for its efforts to educate young people about the dangers of drunken driving. But he said NHTSA still needs to learn more about the latest safety technology so it can “work cooperatively” with auto companies, advocates and government officials on appropriate regulations.
Notably, Simshauser and NHTSA nominee Morrison both worked on the development and commercialization of autonomous vehicles before joining the Trump administration.
The auto industry’s top lobbying group has been cautiously supportive of HALT Act implementation, backing the cause but hesitant to welcome rules that mandate technology in all new vehicles.
“Automakers are making major investments in research, development and testing of drunk and impaired driving technology using sensors, cameras and warning systems,” said John Bozzella, president and CEO of the Alliance for Automotive Innovation. He made that comment in conjunction with the launch of a new research consortium on drunken driving in November 2024.
Bozzella continued: “But anytime the government requires vehicle technology, important questions should be asked. Like how does this technology work — in the real world?  Answering those questions is essential — otherwise, the technology may be rejected by drivers. That’s a result nobody wants. Our research consortium will help NHTSA fill those knowledge gaps.”
Manning, MADD’s government affairs head, indicated she knew little about what the consortium has accomplished over the past year. “You’ll have to ask them,” she said.
She added: “MADD victims and survivors want to challenge the auto industry to meet the moment. Meet the moment with us, with the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, with the administration. Let’s figure out how to move forward.”
The alliance, asked via email about the consortium, noted its hosting of an upcoming safety seminar and pointed to a LinkedIn post from Bozzella praising MADD. “Hard to think of an organization that’s done more to change the culture around drunk and impaired driving on our roads,” he wrote.
Some automakers have worked actively with MADD on the issue, including Detroit-based General Motors Co., Honda Motor Co. and Mazda Motor Corp. All three sponsored the group’s anniversary event in Washington, and MADD specifically honored GM for its longstanding relationship with the organization.
“As part of MADD’s 45th anniversary celebration, we are announcing that GM CEO Mary Barra is the recipient of a MADD Auto Industry Safety Leadership Award,” Manning said in a statement. “The award recognizes GM’s long-time support of MADD’s mission and activities and Ms. Barra’s statement of support for drunk driving prevention technology deployment.”
David Strickland, GM’s vice president of global regulatory affairs, said in a statement that the company was proud of its 30-year collaboration with MADD: “GM supports safe driving laws and we’re continuing steadfast work to help educate and develop technologies to make our roads safer.”
gschwab@detroitnews.com
@GrantSchwab

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