News-Record.com

Today's lead editorial.

The story line is tragically familiar:

A drunken driver takes the wheel and then proceeds to take someone else's life.
Tag drunken drivers?

All too often, he or she turns out to have been there and done that, with previous convictions for drinking and driving.
What more can we do to stop them?

A state lawmaker in Washington suggests color-coding -- in fluorescent yellow.

"I've talked to the law-enforcement agencies and they think it would be an awfully good idea to have a way of visibly telling sheep from goats out on the road,"state Sen. Mike Carrell, a Republican, told The Seattle Times.
His bill would assign bright yellow license plates in that state to DWI offenders for one year as a punishment and as an alert to other drivers.
It's not a new idea. Lawmakers in other states have proposed similar laws, though different color schemes.
A failed California bill mandated red plates at $250 apiece.

A twice-proposed Virginia bill opts for yellow tags with crimson letters and numbers, following the lead (and palette) of a law already passed in Ohio.
An Arkansas bill prefers Gerald Hege-esque, hot-pink license tags with the letters "DWI"preceding the numbers.

Convicted drunken drivers in Iowa, Minnesota and Oregon already get special tags, or at least specially marked tags. Minnesota assigns specially numbered plates to offenders and Oregon requires a sticker.
North Carolina has not seen such legislation, nor should it.

Laws like this one tend to sound good and feel good, but they could be more harmful than helpful.

What if a spouse needs to share the same vehicle?

What if such cars become targets of vandals or vigilantes?

What if the offender lives in a multi-car household and decides to use a car without the tag?

Further, not one scintilla of data suggests that the tags are an effective deterrent.

That's why opposition to the legislation in Washington includes Mothers Against Drunk Driving in the Pacific Northwest. And why the founder of Mothers Against Drunk Driving in Guilford County is similarly underwhelmed.
"It sounds good,"says Michael Jackson, who also is a certified victims' advocate. "But is it practical?”

Repeat drunken drivers obviously have no respect for the law in the first place, Jackson said. Why, then, would they follow the tag requirement? "All they're going to do is steal somebody else's tag and put it on their car,"he said.
Jackson prefers tougher drunken-driving laws.

The DWI tag idea may be rooted in good intentions. But, as Jackson says, "It will never be worth the paper it's printed on.”
No matter what color they choose for the tags.