Georgia highway officials are hoping to deter drunk driving by installing memorial signs along roadways for victims of DUI, the Associated Press reported Feb. 11.

Taking a cue from the makeshift memorials erected by friends and family members of crash victims, Georgia is erecting standardized metal signs with the names of victims, the date of their death, and the words "DUI Victim." The first sign, on I-17 in Statesboro, memorializes Donny Ray Harris, Jr., 17, who died as a passenger in a car driven by a drunken friend.

Advocates say they hope the personalized signs hit home with drivers in a way that statistics cannot. "They'll say 'Well, there really was somebody killed by a drunk driver,'" said bill sponsor state Rep. Ben Bridges. "I feel that the state of Georgia owed it to a DUI victim, because we failed in one way to keep a DUI driver off the road."

The signs are paid for with proceeds of drunk-driving fines.