Story here:
Plates may tag repeat DUI offenders - Md. lawmaker proposes ‘scarlet letter’ on licenses
Is this a good idea or not?
nevermind
Hmmm, others can be driving it, such as a spouse or his kid, so no, not a good idea. Maybe a bright red drivers license for him and that he must agree to a test anytime anywhere to be allowed to drive at all. That would make sense and affect only him.
What is the problem with that? They are not the DUI people and should be driving safely … I have gimp plates on my car and occasionally hubby or roomie drive it, and as long as they dont park in a gimp space, no harm no foul. If the driver isnt driving unsafely, no harm no foul either.
Frankly, with multiple DUI under ones belt, one should not have a license to drive.
That’s my problem with the law: after the third DUI, your license should be shredded.
No, let’s just make them wear a big red A on their clothing, like Hester Prynn, and a magnetic one for the vehicles they drive.
Suppose my (hypothetical) wife has multiple DUIs and is forced to get these plates. My car’s in the shop one weekend, so I have to drive hers. My boss sees me in the Kroger parking lot tooling around with big red “I’m a repeat-offending drunk driver” signs attached to my car.
Needless to say, this does not reflect favorably on my trustworthiness and decision-making capabilities. If I’m called out on it, I have to violate my own privacy and that of my wife by proving that she, not I, was responsible for the DUIs…and that’s a best-case scenario; more likely, I never find out that she saw me at all, and now the “drunk driver” is permanently attached to my name in her mind.
Even without the potential for the measure to affect the innocent, though, this scarlet letter horseshit is precisely that. Determine whether the person poses a threat to other people and act accordingly; if you find that they’re still fit to drive, then let them do so unimpeded. The notion of public humiliation as punishment should’ve died with the town square stocks.
little harsh, don’t you think? depending on where you live, it can effectively cripple your ability to be economically productive.
which is why DUI plates are a good thing. They’re easy to spot, and they should be tied in to some system that only allows that car to be driven to and from work. I think some DUI plates work like this, anyway. If you’re caught driving outside of a designated time, then I have no problem sending you to jail for a very long time.
The fact that other people may or may not drive that car is - imho - inconsequential. In fact, I would perhaps even extend DUI plates to all registered vehicles at that same address.
Chances are, you are some major kind of sot if you get convicted of enough DUIs to warrant a DUI plate. This would probably have an impact on your abilities to perform work functions. Your boss isn’t an idiot, y’know? And, plus, again getting convicted of enough DUIs to warrant the plate isn’t exactly going to go unnoticed by your work - at that point there is probably some jail time involved.
Anyway, if they become common-enough where people know what the plates represent, they will stop assuming that the driver they see is the DUI offender.
Oh (sorry for the three-in-a-row) about the “scarlet lettering” aspect: I should have every right to know that certain vehicles on the road may or may not contain habitual DUI offenders so I can take precautions/possibly take another route to get as far away from that car as I can.
No, it’s generous not harsh. We are talking about people who have repeatedly endangered other people; not tossing them in prison and only shredding their license would be generous. And how “economically productive” would any of the people he risks killing or crippling be once he runs them down?
Drunk driving isn’t a cost-free action to society; it’s not something declared immoral just because finger waving puritans who don’t like drinking say so. It’s genuinely dangerous.
I don’t disagree that it is a real danger with real costs, but I’m also not entirely sure that forcing someone to live in a city with viable mass transit or not work at all is the best way to deal with the problem.
edit: besides, there are many people who drive with suspended or expired licenses. It’s harder to detect than bright red license plates.
I say go for it. It seems a small price to pay for them actually getting away with drunk driving several times.
But those aren’t the only two options. Carpooling, walking, taxis, spouse/kid/friend driving you are all viable options for getting to work.
If someone’s vision drastically worsened to the point that they could no longer safely drive a car, should they still be licensed solely because it would be expensive and/or inconvenient for them to get to work? If not, why do you believe the two situations to be different? Both a legally blind person and a multiple DUI offender has been proved incapable to drive, a threat to themselves and others while behind the wheel. I don’t think we should put them in the town stocks and point and laugh at them, nor do I think revocation of their license should be considered a punishment. Driving simply isn’t something they’re cut out for.
the difference is that a legally blind constantly faces the impediment to proper driving. unless you believe that multiple DUI offenders are always drunk all the time (mind you, i’m only allowing them to drive to and from work, so they’d have to be drunk on the job) then your analogy is crap.
as to the first part: walking and taxis are not really going to be options in places with no mass transit - they’re all characteristics of the same type of place you live in. Carpooling (I assume this is the same thing as your option of having others drive you?) and inconveniencing other people is feasible, sure, but it may not always be feasible for everyone, and again, i’m only talking about allowing them to drive in limited circumstances - which is what the DUI plate is helpful for (one reason); pointing out cars that shouldn’t be on the road at certain times.
I don’t think they’re drunk all the time, but by the third DUI, it seems pretty obvious that they’re drunk often enough that they’re incapable of accepting the responsibility that merely possessing a driver’s license entails.
I don’t believe in zero tolerance, and so I wouldn’t be opposed to a judge making an exception if there’s no mass transit, no spouse, no coworkers to carpool with; i.e. driving is an absolute necessity for employment. But I also think a license revocation is a perfectly reasonable response to a third DUI conviction, for most.
at this point i’ll point out that this MD law is not attempting to connect DUI plates with restrictive driving privileges. to the extent that this isn’t already mandated by the existing DUI laws in the state, I’m suggesting that it would be useful to also have those rules
sure, i mean that’s possible too. i’m not saying that have to be allowed to drive, but an inflexible standard like “after the third DUI, your license should be shredded” isn’t going to solve anything. also, again, if people need to drive, they’ll just do so without a license (look at illegals for a good example of this) so I’d rather them have a warning plate for the rest of us (i know, i know, they don’t have to put the plate on, either)
I know your post was a flippant response, but the implication here is that (1) it is for necessary for one’s boss to be an idiot to conclude that someone with repeat-DUI-offender plates is a repeat DUI offender, because (2) no one with multiple DUI convictions could possibly have concealed that fact from their current employer, but even if they could, it’d be okay, because (3) it’s a safe assumption that any given boss is not an idiot.
Even if I were to grant the above for the sake of argument, let’s alter the scenario so that the person who saw me driving was around a co-worker instead of my boss. I presume you’d be more accepting of the possibility that a randomly-selected coworker might be an idiot, thereby enabling him or her to jump to the conclusion that the guy with the big red DUI plates has a record of drunk driving. This coworker does exactly that, then proceeds to spread this story around the water cooler, meaning the whole office knows about it by 3:00 PM. This effectively switches the consequences from my boss thinking that I’m a drunkard to everyone but my boss finding out that I’m an alcoholic menace. I’m not really sure this is a better result.
Or, heck, let’s make it the nosy old biddy who goes to my great-aunt Gertrude’s tea parties and gives the poor dear a heart attack by telling her the scandalous gossip about her beloved nephew. The point of that portion of my post, above and beyond the single hypothetical I provided, was that there exist situations in which being incorrectly identified as a three-time convicted criminal could conceivably have some negative repercussions, and this point still stands. Regardless of how you feel about the notion of publically branding drunk drivers in general, as long as it remains legal to drive other people’s cars, this specific measure is a horrible idea.
I still don’t understand why just making those interlock devices where you have to blow into it to get the car to start standard on all cars wouldn’t work. It’s not an invasion of privacy, and it’s not something that’s going to affect anyone but the person who tries to drive drunk.