An awful lot of Texans roll through their day with a vividly displayed invitation to police officers to be stopped, ticketed and even arrested. All they have to do is put anything on or around the license plate of their car or truck that "alters or obscures" any part of the lettering, numbers or "another original design feature of the plate."

So that space shuttle on the license plate? Or the cowboy on the horse? Or even the oil derrick? If any of those are even partially covered, a police officer can stop the driver and issue a ticket — and it doesn't matter at all if the license plate number and the state name are easily visible.

Most police officers are much too honest and busy to harass drivers with silly tickets for poor license plate display.

But the law, enacted four years ago, manages to be both silly and potentially dangerous. It makes lawbreakers out of thousands of drivers whose plates are framed in advertisements for car dealers or that feature a university alma mater, or sport a Longhorn or Red Raider sticker.

And it gives a rogue police officer a legal excuse to stop and ticket someone whose looks he or she just doesn't like very much.

A legal challenge to the display law failed last week when the Court of Criminal Appeals, on an 8-1 vote, upheld the law. But in a concurring opinion, three of the judges called it an "uncommonly bad" law; this court is an authority on upholding bad law.

Tom Blanton, legislative director for the Texas Automobile Dealers Association, said he has advised dealers worried about the law to play it safe by not putting their advertising frames on the license plates of newly sold cars and trucks.

"I thought that the first court that had an opportunity to look at that thing would immediately throw it out, because it's so transparently subject to abuse," Blanton sighed. "But that didn't happen."

The Legislature may change it, though.

On Tuesday, the House Transportation Committee is scheduled to hear House Bill 348 by Rep. Bill Callegari, R-Katy, that would rewrite the law so that a violation would occur only if the license plate numbers and letters, including more than half of the name of the state, were obscured. The bill also would protect those using trailer hitches or attaching a transponder for toll road use.

Sens. Tommy Williams, R-The Woodlands, and Dan Patrick, R-Houston, and Rep. Harold Dutton, D-Houston, also have bills to change the law.

Unless the Legislature acts, though, drivers are well advised to take a good look at their license plates and make sure an officer can see it all.