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By STEVE THOMPSONSen. Mike Fasano files a bill calling for special license plates for people convicted of driving under the influence.
A special license plate that begins with the letters DUI.
Bright pink.
That's what Sen. Mike Fasano wants to see on the cars of people who have restricted licenses because they've been convicted of drinking and driving.
The idea has received plenty of attention since he filed a bill with those provisions Nov. 1.
"I could have found a cure for a deadly disease, and I don't think I would have gotten this much publicity," Fasano, R-New Port Richey, said Wednesday. "This is amazing to me."
But not all of the reaction has been positive.
Some particularly object to a part of the bill that says law enforcement officers may, without cause, stop any car bearing a pink plate to check the driver's compliance with his or her restrictions.
What if a man is convicted of DUI, people ask, and the man's wife, who is driving the car, gets pulled over for no reason?
"That violates the Constitution," Rebecca Steele, director of the West Central Florida American Civil Liberties Union, said recently on television news.
Good point, Fasano admitted Wednesday. So he's taking out that part of the bill, he said.
"I think what you have left," Fasano said, is a deterrent for people who may not want their friends and neighbors to see them driving around with a pink plate that labels them a DUI offender.
But what about the shame of spouses who might be forced to drive around with their offending husbands' or wives' pink license tags?
"I hope that would encourage the spouse to say, "Don't you go out and get drunk,' " said Fasano.
The pink plates would also serve as a warning to nearby drivers, Fasano said. And if a pink-plated car pulled away from a bar at 3 a.m., police would know to keep a special eye on it.
Fasano said he got the idea from a constituent, a man whose neighbor has a son who was paralyzed by a drunken driver. Ohio and Michigan already have similar laws, Fasano said.
Fasano doesn't drink, but he doesn't mind if other people do. He only minds if they drive off afterward, he said.
He points to Florida's more than 1,000 deaths each year caused by alcohol-related crashes. Those who have restricted licenses now, he says, wouldn't be affected by the law - only those who offend after it passes. If it passes.
Even if it doesn't, Fasano said, he hopes the small controversy it has created has brought some attention to the problem of drinking and driving.
"I'm 47, and I was told at a very young age about the dangers of driving while intoxicated," he said. "But there are people out there that still don't get it."