Only hours after learning that his son had been killed in an
automobile accident caused by a driver with senile dementia,
Sheldon E. Suroff vowed to change the system that allowed such
a senseless tragedy to occur.
He succeeded nearly six years later when House Bill No. 1536,
the Impaired Driver Bill, was passed by the Missouri legislature
and became law on January 1, 1999. Together with his wife, Karen,
and their daughter, Jill, the Suroffs convinced lawmakers to
implement methods for getting unsafe drivers off the road. Their
efforts during a tenacious five-year campaign ended in a touching
emotional and legal victory.
In July of 1993, 21-year-old Jason Suroff swerved to avoid a
wrong-way driver on Interstate 70 while traveling in western
Missouri. Suroff's car overturned and he was killed instantly;
three other passengers in his car were uninjured. When the 91-
year-old, wrong-way driver was located hours later near the
Missouri-lllinois border, he had no memory of the accident.
The next day when Sheldon learned the details of the accident,
his anger provoked him to action: "When I heard how he died,
that it was a wrong-way driver at age 91, I couldn't believe
what happened. I said, 'There's no excuse for something like
this. I'm going to make sure that we get a bill passed...l'm
going to start an organization [to inhibit impaired drivers]
,"' he said.
Karen was equally committed to her husband's goal. "My philosophy
in life is to make something positive out of everything that
you can. We had a terrible tragedy and we said, 'What are we
going to do? Are we going to sit here and bury ourselves in
this? Or, are we going to make something positive out of this?"'
Still mourning the loss of their son, the Suroffs began working
to- ward a positive outcome to the tragedy.
Sheldon, who's a vice president and senior financial consultant
with Merrill Lynch, and Karen, a sales representative for Pillsbury
Marketing, founded Concerned Americans for Responsible Driving,
Inc. (CARD) in the next 11 months. As a not- for-profit organization
whose objective is "to make the roads safer," they prepared
the first draft of a bill to submit to the Missouri legislature.
This first bill proposed mandatory testing of drivers every
six years after reaching age 45. It was met with widespread
opposition-adversaries claimed that it discriminated unfairly
against older drivers. Criticism by some was so fierce that
the bill's legislative sponsors received death threats, and
the Suroffs were publicly castigated by opponents. Yet, early
on, the late Rep. Sue Shear and now retired Sen. Irene Treppler
had encouraged Suroff to never give up. He took their advice
to heart, and for the next three years the Suroffs tweaked the
bill, eventually winning the support of AARP the Missouri Highway
Patrol, the Alzheimer's Association of Missouri, AM and the
Missouri Medical Society.
The Suroffs remained focused as they learned to decode the intricacies
of politics, the most frustrating aspect of their battle. It
was an arduous process that required many revisions to the original
bill, including removing any reference to age, and hours of
testimony to legislative committees. They submitted bills each
year from 1995 through 1998.
Finally in May, on the last day of the 1998 Missouri legislative
session, the Suroffs flew to upstate New York for Jill's college
graduation. At each leg of the trip, Sheldon anxiously checked
in with his office for updates on the bill. Arriving in New
York at 2:30 p.m., with only four hours remaining, they received
word that the bill had passed in the Senate, but still needed
approval in the House. When the Suroffs arrived at their daughter's
apartment an hour later, they placed one final call and learned
that their bill would become law. An outpouring of emotion followed.
"I believe that somehow, somebody waited until we were all together
[when we heard the news]," Karen said. "It was really ironic.
I think Jason was watching us and saying, 'You did a good job!"'
Only
a handful of states have laws governing impaired drivers, and
the Suroffs insist that Missouri's new law "is the fairest,
the cleanest, and has the broadest scope of any driving bill."
With this in place, family members can confidentially report
an impaired driver to the Department of Revenue for further
evaluation. Police officers and physicians can also report drivers
whom they believe are unfit; Prior to this, anyone could report
drivers, but their names were not confidential, which posed
a barrier to reporting.
The Suroffs credit their persistence and a strong support system
from their friends for their success. "I think it is our nature
and our personality that we're really fighters," Sheldon said.
"I think it's amazing that little people like us-just average
citizens-can get something like this done," Karen said.
