i admit i don't know a heck of a lot about madd -- i'm not a mother, rarely a driver and don't drink -- but i think if you're looking for an effective advocacy a good place to start is the environmental movement especially because it represents two important concepts:

1. diversity of tactics
2. redefining the centre

let's start with diversity. the bottom line is this: there is no one magic method, technique or approach that is going to make cycling popular, safe and effective for all. we will need lobbying to sway politicians, education efforts for both drivers and cyclists, direct action in the streets to turn the heat up and power brokers in the back room sway policy. there is no one "magic bullet" that will solve all our problems: we need a "magic magazine" (forgive the firearms analogy).

now, the education people will think the lobbying people are corrupt and the lobbying people will think the direct action types are lunatics and the direct action types will think the education folks are hopeless idealists.... and none of the different strains of activism will necessarily get along. but that does not mean that they are not all necessary and that any of them can hope to succeed without the other.

which brings up redefining the centre.

if you were alive in 1971 when greenpeace started getting rolling you will remember that for the average person on the street they were regarded as "radicals", "extremists" and "hippies". fair enough. the thing about being an "extremist" is that if the "average" person thinks you are, you are. that's the definition.

then earth first! came along in the '80s. more radical, more extreme, shorter hair. and suddenly greenpeace, without changing their agenda or tactics, started looking "moderate". this is the process we call "redefining the centre".

without critical mass, the lab looks like a bunch gorp-eating freds who want to take away everyone's suv and make people live in yurts. lab -- or whatever organization actually steps up to do their job -- needs a more aggressive, outspoken and, well, "extreme" group to give them respectibility, just like the naacp needed the sncc to make them look moderate.