PREVENTION RATHER THAN CURE
CADD was set up to highlight the dangers of drunken and irresponsible drivers.
Over 40 years ago, John Knight and Graham Buxton suffered the loss of children in road crashes caused by drunken drivers. They found little support to help them through their traumatic experience and very little activity to do anything about the waste of life on our roads and so founded CADD in May 1985.
Its message was that not nearly enough was being done to prevent other people becoming the innocent victims of drinking drivers and that existing policies and penalties in relation to drinking drivers, especially those who killed or injured others, did not adequately reflect the true nature of the offence.
CADD encouraged victim families to launch private prosecutions on death charges to ensure justice for lost loved ones. Every prosecution launched was successful, which proved beyond doubt that prosecuting authorities was not bringing proper charges.
The UK Attorney General acknowledged in writing that there was legitimate cause for concern. Soon afterwards a new offence of causing death by careless driving whilst under the influence of alcohol/drugs was introduced with a penalty of a maximum of 5 years imprisonment which, under pressure, were increased to 10 years maximum imprisonment (the maximum has now been increased to 14 years). Minimum compensation payments were doubled and police activity in breathtesting suspects was dramatically increased.