The Michigan Daily - Tuesday, July 24, 1984 - Page 3
MADD recruits volunteers at fair
By PAUL JACKSON
New among the merchants, artists, and public ser-
vice groups at this year's Ann Arbor Street Art Fair
will be representatives of Mothers Against Drunk
Drivers, an organization which assists victims of
drunk drivers and seeks stricter enforcement of laws
against driving under the influence of alcohol.
What concerns the group most, according to mem-
ber Janice Mohler, is that while drunk drivers often '
die in accidents, frequently claim the lives of
pedestrians and other drivers as well as passengers.
At the Art Fair, the group will be distributing infor-
mation on drunk driving and recruiting volunteers to
work with local MADD programs, including court
watching.
THE COURT-watching system is designed to
reduce the number of times a drunk driver receives
only a suspended jail sentence instead of a harsher
penalty. Mohler said low court attendance at drunk
driving trials contributes to the suspended sentences.
"A few years ago families I know who had relatives
killed by drunk drivers were being told by their
lawyers not to go because it would be too traumatic,"
Mohler said, adding that the resulting image of public
indifference often contributes to lighter sentences.
Steve Landis, president of the Washtenaw County
MADD chapter, said his group often represents the
victim in a drunk driving trial. "Between the ac-
cident and the court trial," he said, "the prosecution
puts together a report on the drunk driver. But dam-
ned little, if anything, goes in about the victim."
BY PARTICIPATING in court cases Landis said
MADD members can make judges consider the vic-
tim. "MADD encourages people to attend the trial
every day of that trial. We will go to court with them
if they want so that the prosecutor, judge, and
everyone understands that the public wants
something done." Landis said his group's efforts
have raised the conviction rate and reduced the num-
ber of suspended sentences.
MADD was founded in California in 1980 after the
teenage daughter of founder Candy Lightner was
killed by a drunk driver. The driver had been convic-
ted of five previous drinking and driving offenses and
had just been released from jail on bail after another
See MADD, Page 5
Labor
projected
to win
Israeli
election
TEL AVIV, Israel (UPI) - The op-
position Labor Party was projected to
win more parliamentary seats than the
ruling Likud bloc in national elections
yesterday, but Prime Minister Yitzhak
Shamir predicted he would be able to
forma coalition government despite his
second-place finish.
"The Likud has won," Shamir
delcared in an address to party workers
who were jubilant despite the Likud's
second-place finish. "I am certain that
within a few days, we shall form the
new government."
STATE-RUN Israel Television
projected Shimon Peres' Labor Party
would win 46 seats to.42 for the Likud
ed Press bloc. The projection was based on
results from half the 4,589 voting
stations.
But Israel Radio's political analyst,
Hanan Crystal, said it appeared the
Labor Party and its supporters could
account only for 56 seats, leaving it five
seats short of the 61 seats needed for a
and train. majority in the 61-member Parliament
known as the Knesset.
"That means the Likud, although it
including trails Labor, can form a coalition
Weiman, government of more than 60 seats if it
luding 72 can win the support of the parties that
bus -and cooperated with it in the outgoing
er 96 who overnment... and factions that prefer
naer96on the Likud as a first option," Crystal
tation. si
diplm BUT PERES refused to concede he
I Medical had suffered his third defeat in seyen
he crash, years at the hands of the Likud.
Shamir, renewing his call for a
ton, said government of national unity, said that
otive and "preliminary discussions with a num-
comotive ber of parties on either a national unity
Ithe cars government or a Likud-led government
have been favorable."
England Peres, appearing before glum sup-
hed their porters at Labor headquarters after the
projection was broadcast, said he
ck was 45 would try to win enough support to form
peed was a new government.
w at what "LABOR has emerged as the biggest
party in this campaign and it is our duty
st," said to try to form the next govenment that
are very will contend with the problems of the
state," Peres said.
ty Board
See LABOR, Page 4
Associat
Workers inspect damage to two Amtrak engines which collided head-on in New York yesterday.
N.Y. Amtrak crash kills m a
NEW YORK (AP) - Two Amtrak passenger trains
collided head-on and derailed on an elevated track yesterday
after the Boston-bound Zip failed to wait for the southbound
Shoreliner to pass on a stretch of track under repair, officials
said. One person was killed and scores were hurt.
Rescuers said they treated 112 people, most for minor in-
juries, after the collision in the New York city borough of
Queens. An Amtrak official said the Zip had failed to wait for
the Shoreliner to pass.
"I FIRST thought we were braking, and then in less than
a second, the seats were uprooted and people were thrown
out of their seats," said Ernest Boyer, 33, who was traveling
on the Washington-to-Boston Zip. "A lot of people were
screaming. People were lying on the floor, saying, 'Let's try
to get out."'
Some people were "covered with blood, some with
gashes," Boyer said.
It was Amtrak's fourth serious accident this month, in-
cluding a derailment that killed five people and injured 147 on
July 7 in Williston, Vt. Four people died in the other two ac-
cidents, which were train-truck collisions.
THE TRAINS in yesterday morning's crash collided on an
approach to the Hell Gate Bridge, just across the East River
from Manhattan at about 110th Street. All Amtrak trains to
and from New England use the route.
Amtrak spokesman Clifford Black said the southbound
track on the line was closed for regular maintenance, and
The Shoreliner, coming in from Boston, had received written
instructions to use the northbound track.
"Whether it was dispatcher failure, an engineer failure or
a signal failure we do not know at this point," he said. "The
northbound train was to have held for the southbo
That did not happen."
AMBULANCES rushed the injured to hospitals,
five people who were seriously hurt, said Ellen
spokeswoman for the Emergency Medical Service.
The EMS treated 112 people in all, she said, inc
who were taken to seven hospitals - 35 of them by b
40 who were treated at the scene. Those 40 and anotb
said they were unhurt were taken to Pennsylvania S
Enrique Gilarranz, 53, identified as a Spanish
from Madrid, died at 3:35 p.m. at Booth Memoria
Center of chest and abdominal injuries suffered in t
said hospital spokeswoman Nancy Simington.
Amtrak spokesman John McLeod, in Washing
each train carried about 160 passengers. The locom
four of the Zip's seven cars derailed, as did the lo
and four of the Shoreliner's five cars, he said. All
remained on the bridge.
Amtrak's service between New York and New
was suspended until 2:07 p.m., when rescuers finis
work, McLeod said.
Black said the speed limit on that section of tra
mph, though it appeared the trains' combined sl
"way below 80 mph." McLeod said he did not knov
speed the trains collided.
The trains "Couldn't have been moving too fa
Deputy Fire Commissioner James Harding. "We
fortunate that they weren't going any faster."
Amtrak and the National Transportation Safet
began separate investigations.