The feature that stood out most on the 2008 Rolls Royce the salesman allowed me to sit in recently wasn't the luxuriously carpeted floor mats or the buttery-soft leather.

For my money, the must-have accessories on the extravagant automobile were the umbrellas sheathed inside each door jamb so that driver and passengers can grab protection when disembarking in the rain.

Every car, even those that don't cost $400,000, should have that feature -- not to hold umbrellas when it's raining, but so that we can whip out baseball bats or hickory switches when drunken drivers zoom the wrong way down highways raining death and destruction, heartache and misery.

Too much? Yeah, you're right. Something must be done, though, to neutralize motorists such as Francisco Martinez who, police say, has left two families and countless friends to mourn the three people he killed by just such recklessness Sunday.

Martinez, who police suspect is in this country illegally, was arrested and charged with driving while impaired, three counts of felony death by motor vehicle, two felony counts of serious injury by motor vehicle, and driving without a license.

If you've never encountered a speeding driver heading toward you from the wrong direction, you can't understand the terror and rage the experience inspires: I have, and I do.

A driver on U.S. 15-501 between Pittsboro and Sanford, making a blind pass in a no-passing zone, ran several drivers, including me, onto the shoulder a few weeks ago. We, at least, survived, and I'm sure I wasn't the only fuming driver who gave a one-finger salute as the daredevil passed.

Weeks later, I'd still love to get more than a finger on that dude.

Guillermo Zintzun Jimenez, Dagoberto Zintzun Jimenez and Santiago Pascual Tellez didn't survive Martinez who, if found guilty, faces five years in prison for each life taken. Do you think their parents and other loved ones consider that sufficient punishment?

When I reached Doug Hecox with the Federal Highway Administration and mentioned the accident, he quickly asked -- then answered -- a question. "What time of day was it? Early in the morning, right?"

Right. Hecox explained what several published studies contend: that wrong-way crashes occur most often during the wee hours. "Alcohol is often involved, but sometimes it can be inattention, driver-fatigue, a blinding morning sun ... or no traffic" coming from the opposite direction, he said.

"Thankfully, this isn't a common problem" -- 333 people were reported killed nationwide in wrong way crashes in 2006 -- "but it's the sort of problem we're looking into," he said. "There may be a way to redesign ramps so it is impossible to go the wrong way, but that's years away. The best safety device on the road is a conscientious driver."

No doubt, but conscientious drivers don't pour their drunken selves behind the wheel of a van.

Neither legislators nor Gov. Mike Easley -- even though he can't run for re-election -- will ever allow motorists to exact highway vengeance upon drunks who kill. That's good.

Couldn't we at least, though, allow the parents and loved ones of their victims a few minutes alone with them -- with or without bats?

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