It’s easy to have a long career in public service without much to show for it.

Issues that were the height of controversy in their day grow hazy over time. Huge amounts of effort are put into keeping bad things from happening, and when those efforts succeed, the accomplishments are invisible.

Dan Gwadosky, who died last week at the age of 57, took part in many of those battles during his 33-year career.

He career began with his election to the Legislature and spanned a term as speaker of the House and eight years as secretary of state. The Fairfield native fought hard, both in the spotlight and behind the scenes, on issues that are now relegated to stacks of yellowing newspapers.

Not all of Gwadosky’s accomplishments, however, are invisible.

In 1997, he began work on reducing the number of fatal car crashes that involved young drivers.

As secretary of state, Gwadosky was confronted with troubling statistics. Young drivers made up 6 percent of the driving public but were involved in 40 percent of crashes, making it the leading cause of death for young Mainers.

Gwadosky chaired a task force that held hearings around the state. His campaign was highly effective and raised public awareness about a problem that was not well understood, and put pressure on the Legislature and the governor to act.

The typical fatal crash, he found, was not a collision of two vehicles, it was a single car with several passengers driving off the road. The driver was usually a male, driving too fast and not wearing a seat belt.

Armed with this information, Gwadosky championed a law that forbids a young driver from carrying passengers for the first three months after getting a license. That law passed in 2000.

Gwadosky didn’t get all he wanted the first time, and so he stayed with the effort.

In 2003, he won passage of a three-step graduated license program, one that prevents all drivers under 18 from carrying passengers, driving late at night or while using a cell phone for six months after getting a license.

The effort has had measurable success.

According to statistics published by the Maine Transportation Safety Coalition, crashes in which at least one driver was between 16 and 24 have plummeted over the last decade, falling from more than 14,000 in 2000, to just over 10,000 in 2009.

Fatalities involving that age group also have followed a downward trend, though still remaining intolerably high, averaging almost one per week in the state.

There will never be an acceptable level of fatal crashes involving young people, but Gwadosky’s work to reduce those crashes has made a difference.

His efforts may not have just saved lives in Maine, but in the other states that used the reforms made here as a model for their young driver safety initiatives.

When it was needed, Gwadosky showed leadership, and that is something that won’t soon be forgotten.

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