DUI / DWI / Drunk Driving Attorney news

DUI bill dies, no doubt from embarrassment

Finally, common sense prevails in dealing with the state's laws on driving under the influence of liquor and drugs.

A bill steeped in election-year, get-tough-on-crime grandstanding has quietly gone to the burial ground for bad bills in the state Legislature. It failed to make it out of the Senate Transportation Committee before Tuesday's deadline.

Senate Bill 6402 would have required people convicted of a DUI infraction to put fluorescent-yellow license plates on their cars for one year after having their driving privileges restored.

Who knows why overreaching bills even get a hearing in Olympia, as this one did last week before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Maybe it's in the spirit of Shylock's demands for debt repayment of a pound of flesh in Shakespeare's "Merchant of Venice."

(Actually, some opponents preferred a "Scarlet Letter" analogy, a reference to another literary classic -- Nathaniel Hawthorne's 1850 novel in which the heroine must wear the letter "A" as punishment for adultery.)

The gaudy plates would theoretically warn the motoring public and law enforcement that someone convicted of DUI is on the road, even though that person already has jumped through the hoops demanded by tough state laws and has had driving privileges restored.

That embarrassment factor seems like piling on when DUI offenders can already face jail time, even if for a day, higher insurance rates, mandatory counseling and suspended or restricted driving privileges.

And once those privileges are restored, the state Department of Licensing requires a person to drive only a motor vehicle equipped with an ignition interlock device. That certainly would seem a more effective approach in dealing with post-DUI driving considerations than a license plate that glows in the dark.

You know this legislation overreached when even Mothers Against Drunk Driving declined to support it. They also prefer measures such as interlocks and sobriety checkpoints.

If lawmakers want to ratchet up DUI enforcement, they should have approved the checkpoints that were requested of them by Gov. Chris Gregoire.

This short 60-day session in Olympia has too many pressing issues to waste valuable time on feel-good legislation.

There's a joke in Olympia during sessions that no bill is really dead until the Legislature has adjourned for good. Even then, it's a good idea to allow 24 hours to make sure they don't come back.

This is one bad example of government excess that should stay buried.

Mike Carrell loves his "Eureka!" idea.

The Republican state senator from Lakewood just sponsored a bill aimed at people who get DUIs.

Here's how it would work: If you are convicted of driving under the influence, then for a year or so you would have to put a fluorescent-yellow license plate on your car -- for the whole world to see.

Great. But really, why stop there?

Plenty of drivers are impaired by poor judgment -- and not always as a result of booze.

POLL
What do you think about yellow license plates for drivers with DUI convictions?

A smart legislative bill
A serious waste of time
It could work
Don't care


Speeders deserve flaming-red plates for burning up the road.

Folks cited for text messaging behind the wheel or putting on makeup while steering deserve periwinkle plates.

Elderly drivers who slam into buildings because they shift forward instead of backward get lavender-blush plates with sparkly polka dots.

And you know what's so great about these colorful options?

The perfect drivers out there could single out the bad ones and take the law into their own hands.

See a yellow plate? Key the drunk's car for kicks.

Spot Grandma with polka dots? Call 911, even if the old lady's driving just fine.

Spy a job candidate pull up with red plates? Nix his job prospects.

The possibilities for a rush to judgment and vigilante justice are endless.

Also, imagine others swerving unsafely when they near someone "Driving While Yellow."

Who cares if the person at the wheel is only borrowing the car and not responsible for the offense signified by the plate?

But here's why Carrell's idea rises to genius: It saves lawmakers the time and sweat of doing the real hard work to make laws to curb DUIs -- and leaves them more time to hit the links.

In all seriousness, I'm for appropriate punishment when it comes to drunken driving, one of the biggest, most dangerous and persistent public problems.

Ignition-lock devices, even for first-time offenders, are a step in the right direction. Such contraptions -- which a few years ago became mandatory for people convicted of DUI -- prevent impaired people from starting their car, though politicians also could push much harder for sobriety checkpoints.

Stiffer fines for bars that overserve also sound good.

But, Carrell's yellow license plates are, to him, a perfect solution -- yeah, perfectly feeble and overly simplistic.

It is shallow shame legislation that does nothing -- no solid data show that special plates deter DUIs in other states -- while trying to convince the public that it does something.

The color-coded kookiness trivializes the disease of alcoholism, which can be lethal when a sufferer drinks and drives. Plus, you've paid your societal debt if you've done the time or paid the fine.

As far as the bill goes, Gov. Chris Gregoire is on the fence.

"She's still studying the issue," a spokesman for Gregoire said Friday.

Carrell's legislation -- Senate Bill 6402 -- was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee last week and now sits before the Senate Transportation Committee.

The dedicated watchdogs at MADD aren't enthused. They prefer anti-drunken driving measures with teeth.

Meanwhile, the Washington State Patrol is withholding comment on the bill.

Carrell didn't return my calls. But I suspect he's downright stumped about why smart people are taking so long to see what he does -- that yellow license plates are a good way of visibly telling "sheep from goats" on the roads, as he put it to one Seattle reporter.

I wonder if such logic applies in Olympia, in separating do-something lawmakers from the do-nothings. If so, I've got a prize for the good senator -- a scarlet-colored plate to honor officials who drum up dumb ideas that waste government time and erode public confidence. Eureka!




Can shame sober someone up?

State lawmakers are wondering just that as they consider a law to require people convicted of drunken driving to put a bright-yellow license plate on their cars.

Ohio has required the so-called "party plates" for years — plenty of them ordered by Garfield Heights Municipal Court Judge Jennifer Weiler.

Weiler told me about the time she asked a classroom of sixth-graders whether they thought the law was fair, whether people who drink and drive should be punished with yellow plates.

Every hand went up.

"What if it was your mom's car?" she asked.

Every hand but two dropped like a torn kite.

The lesson? Shame works.

There aren't any statistics to show whether Ohio's yellow plates have been life-changing. In fact, the number of plates issued has gone up, from 4,709 in 2005 to 5,167 last year.

But Doug Scoles, executive director of MADD Ohio, said there has been a decline in the number of alcohol-related automotive fatalities in the four years the plates have been required.

"I can't say it's because of the plates; I can't back it up," Scoles said. "But I like to think they are part of the reason."

Nor can he say whether other drivers are more careful around yellow-plated drivers.


"But I know that I see them and think, 'I don't want to get too close to this guy,' " he said. "It's just human nature."

"If you have those plates, you're going to think twice about pulling into a bar. Forget the scarlet letter. These people are criminals."

But they also may be sick, said Patrick Hart, a Seattle psychotherapist and substance-abuse counselor.

"We view alcohol problems as an illness, so why don't we shame someone for kidney stones? Why don't we say, 'Suck it up, pull up your bootstraps and get rid of those kidney stones?' "

Well, because no one has been killed by a 2,700-lb. kidney stone that crossed the center lane going 75 mph.

Hart, no fool, knows this.

"The carnage associated with drunk driving is unfathomable," he said. "But there's no evidence that anyone ever said, 'I am going to go out and get a DUI.' "

Hart got one himself, years ago. He was "drunker than a peach-orchard boar" when he hit a parked car. And he was embarrassed. But that didn't move him to seek help. His family's compassion did.

In fact, he said, putting people's drinking problems on a license plate could drive them to drink.

"The shame simply perpetuates the problem," Hart said.

I have my own qualms about the plates. Police may see them as probable cause. Other drivers' reactions could make for even more trouble on the road.

Scoles disagreed. As long as people drink and drive, he said, there will be a need for police — and other citizens — to know what kinds of folks are sharing the road.

And those who have broken the law should know they are being watched.

"If we do nothing," Scoles asked, "we know what the results are going to be, right?"