Comments on Re: Sheeps and Goats on the Road

How about taking away DUI drivers' licenses altogether? Certainly on the second offense, there's no way you should be allowed to drive. And driving without a license afterwards? Five years. Screw colored license plates.

Why not put the breath ignition switches in ALL vehicles and have ALL drivers have to blow in it to start their car? Make it mandatory for everyone.

But you are right, once you pay your debt to society you should be marked for life. One bad error in judgement you should always pay with stigma.

BTW, didn't Josh admit to driving drunk on Slog back a couple of months ago?

If I'm coming down Hwy 2 from Stevens Pass late some night, I'd *love* to know which drivers closing at 120mph are recent DUIs.

Thanks, Erica.

What about families that only have one car? To assume that the person driving the vehicle is only going to be the offender is a massive oversight. But I won't wait for a thoughtful response ECB since you seem to have a policy of only responding to comment trolls.

Unspoken reason for this ... it'll lessen the perceived burden for police to pull these people over in the future. Not that there really is any burden anymore, anyways.

Andrew: Marked for life? It's one year. Unless you're planning to live only one year, this law would not mark you for life.

I'm with Dominic and Fnarf and sprizee (re the family car problem). Screw the scarlet letter stuff. I don't see what sort of disincentive it really would provide anyway.

@4

I guess if you drive drunk in your family's only car, you're that much more of a douche.

@5 is correct. It'll give cops automatic probable cause. Like a "Steal Your Face" bumper sticker.

According to KUOW only Michigan has some form of actual identification via license plate, not the rest of those states listed.

Ignition locks are one thing that glowing license plates aren't: private. It's inside your car, no one else sees it, and it's effective in preventing you from driving if you're drunk.

Glowing license plates on the other hand, are another thing: public. If you already paid a fine, had your license suspended, and completed whatever other court-appointed tasks were given to you, why do you need to be publicly shamed for another year?

If someone is still a legitimate risk to public safety in that regard, give them an ignition lock, because a glowing license plate won't physically prevent them from turning on the car and driving drunk again. Public shaming and stigmatizing may seem appropriate to some, but I'm not so sure...

you're all for it will they extend it to special plates for marijuana convictions.

Hmmm.... the 'family car' problem presents a real conundrum. It's the person that's the offender, not the vehichle.

Why not armbands? They've worked to identify people to avoid in the past.

The law doesn't exist to shame people.

All these claims that you already paid your debt are pure semantics. I'm fine with saying we want to increase the punishment for a DUI to include all of the above plus a year with "I'm a drunky" plates.

Happy now? Your debt to society will be considered paid after your year with the marked plates is up.

And if the cops are more likely to pull you over because you had a DUI within the last year, good. Somebody should be keeping an eye on you.

um...have a family member register the car in their name and not yours?? duh?

I thought people who have literally served their time (weren't let out early for good behavior) aren't subject to parole.

@13

some people think it does:

http://www.al.com/images/newshp/shoplifter.jpg

The public nature of it is unnecessary. Take their license, and if they drive without it, throw them in jail for five years as Fnarf suggested.

@ 14

Hah. Nice.

Burn their eyes out or the death penalty, they get to choose.

But the bigger question, what about Flexcar, will they provide glowing plate cars or will prior offenders be forced to be big polluters as well?

Fnarf wins @1.

It's a false choice.

Although, one would have to see gradients in this - if you got a DUI for driving 0.002 while under 25, two strikes doesn't make sense if you got a DUI for 0.008 when you were 55 ...

Look, we can all agree that Mike Carrell is a prick, but at least spell his name right. Two L's.

Flexcar still lets you take their cars if you're a drunk? Does their insurance company know they do that?

How about a glowing yellow framed voter registration card for Dan Savage for 4 years (1 presidental election) after he settled his charges of voter fraud?

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1589/is_2000_Dec_19/ai_67921208

that way, other people could we aware that he might fraudulently vote (or lick doorknobs) again, even after he made restitution for his crime.

Hmmm. Let's see how I can get around that. Keep or buy a car that is registered before the year begins and then just register late after the year ends.

Or just get someone else in my family to register the car.

Why stop at drunk drivers? What about drivers who actually cause accidents or kill someone...maybe while talking on their cell phone.

..."No violations of Reckless driving, negligent driving, DWI or DUI in 5 years."

FIVE YEARS! That's harsh, bro! That's like, way after you paid your debt to society, man. Is that legal? Is FlexCar discriminating against the differently toxicated community?

I've been legally advised not to write too much about this subject for, oh, another 8 months or so, but lemme just say this: from my (admittedly biased) perspective, the financial and mental costs for a first time offender are already pretty amazingly astronomical as is. On top of everything else, having a bright neon signifier of your shame and stupidity and guilt for everyone to see strikes me as cruel and unusual. To be honest, I could see this as a possibility for second time offenders, but I'm still flabbergasted how anyone could ever afford two of these.

This bill is obviously sponsored by people who assume 1 car per driver. What's to stop the offender from putting the "DUI" plates on a car that's rarely driven?

Or are they requiring the plates go on all cars the offender could drive?

Of course, if the plates go on ALL cars the offender could drive, then we have no idea of the car is driven by the offender, the offender's spouse, or the offender's kids.

Way to go. Completely meaningless license plates.

@5, 9, 14

hate to break it to you guys, but the cops can already find out if you've got a dui conviction.

If they're behind you and they run your plate, all they have to do is hit control f12 on the return and can pull up the registered owners driving status. Press another two buttons and they can pull your driving abstract in their cars. All in the space of a red light.

Don't break the law and endanger other people and you won't have to worry about it.

the idea involves both public shaming, and making it easier for police to identify a past violator.

while riding a motorcycle, i was hit by an uninsured driver with a suspended license who was driving their significant other's uninsured car.

so, yeah, there are ways around anything -- so i'm with fnarf @1.

In Ohio, we call them 'Party Plates'

Ohio's party plates have similar colors to New Mexico's plates, so when people from New Mexico drive through Ohio, we all think they're drunkards.

I think it would be easier if ignition locks were standard equipment in all cars. seat belts are and not wearing a seatbelt will only hurt the person not wearing it, a drunk driver has the potential of killing others.

i do not like the idea of ignition locks on all cars.

Drunk drivers can commiserate with registered sex offenders about how life is so unfair.

" to tack a small, one-year penalty onto a DUI sentence"

That makes it sound like it is secondary to the initial expense, loss of license, decade long insurance nightmare, and mandatory meetings. But in my opinion the scarlet letter approach is alone worse punishment than all of that combined. People passing you on the highway would always be looking over to see who the monster driving is. And surely there would be some glares. And just knowing everyone who sees your plates is judging you. Not to mention the damage it could do to you professionally? You can't hide that from your coworkers for a whole year. It would be a nightmare. And if your family has to partake in that shame too (I'm sure the kids at school won't be cruel to your kids when they figure out the colored plates mean something like your parents are drunks)

Surely there's a better way. Or did I just prove what a great deterrent it would be. Crap.

Just wanted to add, all those ways around it are easier for people who aren't poor.

simple solution to all this "how do you make sure they don't just drive someone else's car?" stuff: have it part of the penalty. Throw 'em in jail for a year if they're caught cheating. Unlike #27, $ penalties don't work for the poorest and richest ends of the bell curve.

Or, instead of plates, it could be one of those magnetic pyramid things that pizza delivery guys slap on their cars.

And make their horn play "La Cucaracha"

We should scrap this idea and just go back to using the stocks.

Well, we should just let poor people drive around as drunk as they want, then.

"...it’s to create a disincentive for repeat offenses of a crime whose recidivism rate is astronomically high."

This is a factual claim; is there evidence to support it? And how effective is it in states that have adopted the practice?

You would thing that groups like MADD would be all over this if these programs actually had an impact on behavior. They apparently have not endorsed this legislation.

Speeding also is involved in tens of thousands of auto deaths per year. Should we use the same logic and plate people who get one or more moving violations?

No, no, it's far better to keep instilling laws that the rich can get around but the poor can't. YOU WIN.

i think all second offenses for drunk-driving should result in, amongst other things, a suspended license. all second offenses for driving with a suspended license should face mandatory jail time of over a year.

This is the kind of dumbass idea that only a republican could come up with. And I'd check those states to make sure they actually do have those laws. Republicans love to pull things like that out of their asses.

No one would get 'em, no one would keep 'em on their car. Seriously, why would they? How would any cop ever find out they didn't have the right plates on their car, other than by pure accident?
I had an ignition interlock for a year. Once you get it, no one checks that it is still on your car. The installer will remove it whenever you ask. Same would be the case with license plates, I imagine.
This is like saying the death penalty stops murder, here in a nation with the top homicide rate. People do what they can get away with, they assume they will not get caught. Period.

"Got a name for people like you, Hi. That name is called recidivism."
"Ree-peat 0-fender."
"Not a pretty name, is it, Hi?"
"No Sir, it sure ain't. That's one bonehead name."

I'm not a big fan of this proposal, although not because of the shaming the driver component. Regarding all of the questions/comments on "paying ones debt," for a first offense, most people serve 1 or 2 days and are placed on probation for anywhere from 1-5 years. It's not like they've served a long period in jail and then would be saddled with new requirements.

But regardless, I agree that this won't make that much of an impact on people with serious problems. The fact is that most people fall into 1 of 2 categories: the person who screws up once and learns their lesson or the person who has a serious problem and cannot stop drinking and driving.

For people in the first category, the consequences involved ($, a day in jail, probation, mandatory ignition interlock, 90 day license suspension) is enough of a deterrent. On the other hand, it's VERY hard to deter the people in the second category. That's why you see repeat offenders arrested for DUI AND driving on a revoked license AND driving w/out the ignition interlock device (both of which are also crimes). Just as some of those people will borrow other people's cars so that they can get around the ignition interlock device, they'll find ways to get around the license requirement.

The argument about 1-car families is pretty persuasive, as is the argument that it will make cops more likely to pull someone over. It just screams pretext stop.

and ps, this guy may be the poster guy for people in my second category
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/351132_drunk14.html

Don't most DUI convictions end up with some kind of probationary requirements? That was my impression of the ignition lock, etc. This license plate could just be added to the terms of their probation.

An example of Ohio's party plates:

http://taylorville.sunk.org/images/ohio_license_plates.gif