DUI license plates make sense

Here is my thought: people who have been convicted of DUI should be required to use special license plates reflecting their record. A politically loaded proposition, I grant you, but one I believe warrants consideration.

This idea came to me after a number of events occurred over the last few months, not the least of which is that my daughter, God help me, will all too soon be 16. Events in the news: two area judges were arrested on charges of DUI, talks of raising the legal driving age, and as unlikely as it sounds, the nationalizing of the sexual offender laws help elucidate this proposition. Yes, I realize that last one appears incongruent, but hear me out.

Sex offender registration operates under the premise that the rate of recidivism is so high that in order to protect our children from harm we make offender's names a matter of public record. Indeed, it is implicit we have a right to know of such offenders in order to protect our children, our neighborhoods, and our communities. With the continued strengthening of such laws it is reasonable to assume such a strategy works. Do not drunken drivers have a high recidivism rate as well? Does not such public scrutiny cause sex offenders to more tightly police their behavior?

Anyone who has been next to a teen while driving on a permit can attest to this fact: one of the hardest lessons to get though their post-pubescent hubris is the concept of defensive driving. The consideration to change the legal driving age because accidents are the number one cause of teenage deaths gives credence to teenagers' inability to grasp the whole defensive driving concept.

Suppose it is 11 p.m. on a Friday night and you, I, or God forbid my daughter, is driving behind someone who has a license plate that clearly states he's been convicted of a DUI: hmmm, defensive driving? Of course, he has the personal responsibility to not be driving impaired. We have the right, under the same premise as sex offender registration, to protect ourselves from potential harm.

At least my daughter would have enough information to protect herself from a drunken driver's poor judgment. And would not the DUI plate be a deterrent for the convicted DUI offender to take responsibility for driving sober?

I have a few questions to consider: How do drunken drivers threaten our children's welfare less than sex offenders? How many convicted drunken drivers no longer drink at all? Why is drunken driving more socially forgivable the sex offenders?

Joseph Nace

Elgin