From the Editor: One minor violation that isn't

Looking at our local arrests column last week, you might have been puzzled by a couple of entries about people who were booked into jail.
We listed a man who was arrested on charges that included going 39 mph in a 20 mph zone in Berwick. Further down, there was a booking for a Patterson man arrested in Morgan City after a stop for speeding. A Morgan City man was booked in Franklin after being stopped for no inspection sticker and an expired license plate.
But those weren’t the only charges. Our alleged offenders were also booked for driving under suspension or driving without a license.
You might think what I once thought: Going to jail? For driving without a valid license?
What’s the matter? Too many empty beds at the jail? We’re supposed to be finding ways to keep nonviolent offenders out of jail.
I learned better.
A project in the 2000s, when I was working in Lafayette, required a deep dive into statistics maintained by the National Highway Safety Traffic Safety Administration. That agency maintains the Fatality Analysis Reporting System, a series of databases that, if you have a pick-ax and one of those helmets with the little light in front, will tell you everything you want to know about auto crashes that kill people.
The specific target of this project was the impact of drunken driving going back to the mid-1990s in our coverage area, which at the time stretched from Evangeline Parish to St. Mary.
The DWI stats were bad enough. Close to half the fatalities on our roads were attributable to alcohol in one way or another.
But something else emerged, too.
Each year, somewhere between 8 percent and 12 percent of fatal crashes in that part of South Louisiana involved at least one driver whose license had been suspended or revoked. In a handful of cases, two drivers in a deadly crash were driving after a suspension or revocation.
That figures, you might think. Bad drivers a) get their licenses taken away and b) bad drivers get into crashes.
But Louisiana gives the justice system two tools for punishing drunken drivers and keeping them from offending again. The system can take away their licenses, or it can put them in jail.
Imprisonment is usually reserved for extreme cases, such as DWI crashes that kill people.
So the most common, day-in-and-date-out weapon judges have to protect us from the really dangerous drivers is taking away the driver’s license.
But if something like one fatal crash in 10 involves a suspended or revoked driver, the weapon isn’t as effective as we’d want it to be.
Other states have tried more drastic weapons. Some have some variation on the “scarlet letter” system. A method, usually a special license plate or sticker, marks a driver that patrol officers are allowed to pull over without any other infraction, just to make sure the driver isn’t impaired. Some states have tried immobilizing or even confiscating the vehicles of repeat DWI offenders or those who have tried to drive without a valid license.
Louisiana has laws allowing for suspension of repeat traffic offenders, but nothing like the point system other states employ.
To be sure, some combination of Louisiana law, law enforcement agencies, infrastructure improvements and safer vehicles has performed a minor miracle when it comes to making roads safer.
The number of people killed in highway crashes has fallen from 993 in 2007 to 752 in 2015, the last year for which Louisiana Highway Safety Commission has posted statistics. The number dipped as low at 677 in 2011.
But we can still count on alcohol being involved in something like 40 percent of fatal crashes. And the overall number of crashes is up from about 148,000 in 2010 to 168,000 in 2015.
So we still have some work to do when it comes to making our roads safer.
Bill Decker is managing editor of The Daily Review.