The Democratic leader of the Chamber of SC is absolutely right: the Department of Motor Vehicles should not be allowed to issue license plates bearing the seal of the Children of the Confederate Veterans.
But Mr Todd Rutherford’s H.3091 does not go far enough.
DMV should also not be allowed to issue license labels bearing the logo of HL Hunley or Bob Jones University or SC Equality or any other politically controversial organization.
Nor should the issuance of plaques bearing the SC Junior Golf Foundation logo be allowed. Or the University of South Carolina – or Clemson University, or any other college. Or high school. Or the Penn Center, or the Prince Hall Masons, or the SC Aviation Hall of Fame, or the SC Cattlemen’s Association, or the SC Troopers Association or the Surfrider Foundation or the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity or the Boy Scouts of America or the Boykin Spaniel Foundation.
South Carolina has more than 400 different license plate designs, and the Legislature is adding more each year.
Ditto labels with illustrations that are not logos, but that announce recycling and gang and our troops and trees and utility workers and fishing and … well, you get the picture.
Although Mr. Rutherford is offended that the Sons logo includes the Confederate battle flag, the biggest problem with this plaque is the same one that it shares with more than 400 other special SC plaques: They are … special plaques – which means they’re different from standard cards.
All of these different designs make it more difficult for the police to use the signs as intended: to identify information about the vehicle and its owner.
A license plate tells the police officer, before she leaves her vehicle, who owns the car that she just stopped at a red light and if someone is running from the police. Reports whether the vehicle has been stolen. This information can indicate whether the driver can be dangerous and whether the police should call for backup. In other words, it can save a policeman’s life.
That is why the state law requires that the license plates of vehicles are illuminated with a white light that makes them “clearly legible” for up to 15 meters. That’s why state law prohibits drivers from adding a frame around the license plate that hides their letters or numbers.
Mr. Rutherford also introduced bills to prohibit the police from stopping drivers for violating those laws – probably for the same reason that his other bill does not prohibit all special signs and, in fact, allows the Sons sign to be sold without the emblem: it focusing on issues that have nothing to do with the purpose of license plates.
But this is a dangerous thing to do. Imagine, for example, how much a police officer has to get closer to a car at high speed to find out if he has a USC 2017 Women’s Basketball National Champions or USC 2010 and 2011 Baseball National Champions. Or to say anything about the label when it is framed, obscuring the numbers accidentally or deliberately. Or at night, when the label light is burned out.
There is an additional problem with special tags: most are actually fundraising tools, with $ 50 or more added to the price to support the organization they advertise. This means that the DMV is forced to serve as a fundraiser for almost all organizations that want to get taxpayers to subsidize their fundraising.
Organizations that wish to raise money need to hire fundraisers. People who want to announce their loyalty to the Children of Confederate Veterans, anti-abortion efforts or environmental causes, or Jimmy Buffett, Clemson or USC, need to buy a bumper sticker.
And our lawmakers need to take the DMV out of the job of raising money for private organizations and make it easier for the police to do their job, getting rid of all those special license tags.