New York wants license plates to identify drunken drivers
Published: June 18, 2005
Convicted drunken drivers may soon be required to display special license plates that would identify them to police.
Two senators unveiled a measure yesterday that would require drivers convicted of three drunken-driving offenses in a five-year period or four within 10 years to purchase license plates with a number code that police could use to identify them as convicted drunken drivers.
The legislators say the bill is necessary to counteract rising deaths and accidents as a result of drunken driving, especially by repeat offenders.
“We need to send a message that we are serious (about combating drunk driving),” said sponsor Sen. Nicholas Spano, R-Yonkers.
Proponents of the legislation say it will help police officers identify potentially risky drivers on the road.
“Repeat offenders kill people,” said Senate Transportation Committee Chairman Thomas Libous, R- Binghamton. Libous said repeat offenders account for nearly half of the drunken-driving accidents in the state.
But critics of the bill worry that this might violate civil liberties and lead to false prosecution of family members who may also drive the car.
According to a statement from the New York Civil Liberties Union, the bill is “misguided.” Union officials argue that the seizure of license plates, which would occur upon arrest, before a conviction, is unjust and that the plates penalize the offender’s “innocent family members.”
Amazon discount!Bill sponsors, while acknowledging the potential issues with the bill, say it is necessary to help police identify potentially dangerous situations.
“It is a stigma, one I think we should impose on people,” Spano said.
Karen Pettigrew of Mothers Against Drunk Driving agreed. Often, she said, even after a repeated offender has had his or her license revoked or suspended, he or she may continue to drive. The license plate will make it easier for the police to pull over these drivers, she said.
Similar legislation has passed in Minnesota, Georgia and Ohio, where convicted drunken drivers must use license plates that are specially color-coded. In Ohio the plates are known as “scarlet letters.”
More than 500 people are killed in New York each year as a result of drunken drivers, and 48,000 drivers are arrested on charges of driving drunk, according to a Senate report. In the past five years, drinking-related highway deaths have increased by 5 percent in the state, even as they decreased by 5 percent nationwide, the report said.
The recent trend reverses a long-time pattern of drunken-driving deaths declining faster in New York than in the rest of the country.
Between 1982 and 2003, drunken-driving deaths declined by 72 percent in New York, compared to 64 percent in the country as a whole, according to statistics compiled by the Senate.
The bill does not yet have a sponsor in the Assembly.
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