Friends don't let friends

[Garson O'Toole]

NewspaperArchive has an instance of the advertising tagline in August 1975.

Cite: 1975 August 04, Beckley Post Herald, [Advertisement: SILENCE IS
DEADLY: US Department of Transportation / National Highway Traffic
Safety Administration], Quote Page 8, Beckley, West Virginia.
(NewspaperArchive)

[Begin excerpt]
FRIENDS DON'T LET FRIENDS DRIVE DRUNK
[End excerpt]


An article on the Freakonomics blog discussed the creation of the
tagline, but the timeline given was odd. Dubner mentioned "the early
1980s", but the tagline was in use by 1975.


Cite: 2010 March 05 [Date on website], Freakonomics blog, "Friends
Don’t Let Friends ..." by Stephen J. Dubner. (Accessed
freakonomics.com on August 28, 2012)

http://www.freakonomics.com/2010/03/05/friends-dont-let-friends/

[Begin excerpt]
I reminded the audience that “friends don’t let friends walk drunk.”
Immediately afterward, a woman approached: her name is Susan Wershba
Zerin, and she turned out to be one of the creators of the original
slogan “Friends don’t let friends drive drunk.” In the early 1980s,
she worked at the Leber Katz Partners ad agency in New York and was
the account manager on a pro bono anti-drunk driving campaign for the
U.S. Department of Transportation. “Elizabeth Dole, the secretary of
transportation, was our key contact,” she recalled. The phrase
“Friends Don’t Let Friends Drive Drunk” was written as the campaign’s
internal strategic statement, but it proved so memorable in-house that
it was adopted as the campaign’s tagline.
[End excerpt]

Garson

On Tue, Aug 28, 2012 at 5:56 PM, Benjamin Barrett <gogaku at ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Benjamin Barrett <gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Friends don't let friends
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I wonder if friends let friends look at that website.....
>
> On Aug 28, 2012, at 2:43 PM, Dave Wilton wrote:
>
>> -
>> This one has been making the rounds of the internets over the last month:
>>
>> http://weknowmemes.com/2012/07/friends-dont-let-friends-skip-leg-day/
>>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of
>> Benjamin Barrett
>> Sent: Tuesday, August 28, 2012 5:26 PM
>> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>> Subject: Friends don't let friends
>>
>> The earliest I see on Google Books of "Friends don't let friends drive
>> drunk" is 1976: "ALCHOL/SAFETY PUBLIC INFORMATION CAMPAIGNS: SEMINAR NO.8."
>> (http://ow.ly/diElG)
>>
>> This snowclone is fairly widespread now.
>>
>> One of the more common ones I've seen is: Friends don't let friends go to
>> Starbucks
>>
>> Today, I saw "Friends don't let friends drink burnt coffee" on the signboard
>> outside a coffee shop, though the "burnt" form made me wonder where the
>> writer is from.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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