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Texas bill could honor teen killed by driver with fake paper license plate tags

Texas bill could honor teen killed by driver with fake paper license plate tags

AUSTIN, Texas — At just 18 years old, Terrin Solbrig was tragically killed by a driver using a fraudulent license plate tag.

He was with his friends on a bicycle. A passing truck couldn’t see Solbrig through a cloud of dust, hitting and killing him.

Like any parent in this situation, Tawny and Stewart Solbrig wanted the person responsible to be brought to justice.

It proved more difficult than he could have imagined, as the temporary tag on the truck that hit Terrin was fake. The dealer that sold that driver’s tag issued more than 30,000 paper tags in about six weeks, state records confirm.

“I really think it was an accident and no, that paper tag didn’t cause the accident, we totally understand that,” Tawny told us last year. “But that truck wouldn’t have been on the road for years if they didn’t have access to paper tags every 90 days.”

RELATED: ‘Tag-demic’: New Braunfels family calls for overhaul of paper tags as lawmakers weigh options

Now, some four years later, Rep. Carrie Isaac is proposing a new way to honor Terrin’s legacy. A law from 2023 has increased the penalty for producing false labels and may soon bear Terrin’s name.

“I felt very grateful to be able to honor him in this way,” Isaac said.

After meeting with the Solbrigs, Isaac says he wanted to find a way to honor Terrin, filing this among the first bills for the 2025 legislative session.

“We’d rather have our son back than any law named after him,” said Stewart Solbrig. “But you know, it gives us at least some comfort knowing that this will carry on his legacy.”

The Solbrigs said their main goal has always been to raise awareness of the issue and do their part to make Texas safer. This renaming would be a bonus.

“This is the little bit of justice he deserved,” Tawny said.

By mid-2025, Texas will phase out paper labelsreplacing them with metal plates when you purchase a car. Law enforcement groups said this would be a significant win for public safety.

Special Agent Jeffrey Green of the Texas Department of Public Safety’s Division of Criminal Investigations spoke to a panel of lawmakers in October.

“Criminals were printing thousands of temporary tags a week for anyone willing to pay for them,” Green said of the paper tags.

He says the metal plates will give law enforcement a better starting point in their investigations because paper tags are often used by people with unsafe vehicles or who are trying to remain undetected when committing crimes.

“With this information, law enforcement officials will have leads to follow instead of hitting dead ends,” Green said.

However, the Texas Automobile Dealers Association expressed concern about the changes and the rollout.

Karen Phillips, with the association, told the Transport Committee: “I think what we’re going to find is that once the temporary tags are scrapped, we’re going to find ubiquitous metal tags, fraudulent or not, on the road.”

Law enforcement officials fear there could be attempts to reverse the release of the metal tags before it happens.

“It’s just disappointing,” Stewart Solbrig said.

State Rep. John Lujan, who sits on the Transportation Committee, said paper tags are a longstanding problem in San Antonio.

When asked if he would be against delaying the date or the plan to switch to metal tags, Lujan said, “I think now we have to roll up our sleeves and work to get that date done and meet that date.”

Leaders will discuss renaming the law and rolling out the metal tags when they return to Austin next month.