DUI License Plates

You can tell that the Maryland General Assembly is in session. You can hear the laughter 50 miles away.

As reported on Channel 11 this morning in their usual absurd question, the Maryland General Assembly is going to consider legislation that would require repeat offenders to have a DUI license plate. Everyone but lawmakers knows that laws do not prevent people from doing things. If that was the case, no one would speed or have oral sex or take lions into movie theaters, and we know that's not the case.

Obvious problems with that law are that multiple people can use a vehicle. I drive my wife's van, she's drives my truck. When I started driving, I drove my parent's car. Who's the drunk driver?

Let's put this into perspective, let's assume Maryland Delegate Kumar Barve gets arrested for drunk driving 2 more times (he's already been arrested once). He would then be required to have this new DUI license plate. Is that fair to Mrs. Barve to have to drive his car with the DUI plates? Everyone would think that she's the drunk driver and not our elected state delegate from Montgomery County.

Another point that I read is that if we start there, we are just going to start adding special license plates for other various offenses. Image if we add sex-offenders, which means State Delegate Robert McKee in Washington County would be required to have this plate. Or Democratic Senator candidate David Dickerson who was arrested for raping a 19-year old. What about sodomy? That would land homosexual state delegate Anne Kaiser with her own sodomist license plate.

As you can see, this proposal is clearly a bad idea. If legislators want to do something serious about drunk driving, let's start convicting them and putting them in jail. If you spent several months in jail for drunk driving, I'm sure you'd be less inclined to do it again.