WE'VE ALL SEEN THEM -- perhaps been them ourselves: drivers who don't bother to alert us that they're turning or changing lanes, who tailgate, who drive too slowly in the left lane or too fast in any lane, who don't move over to let traffic merge onto the interstate, who don't turn on their headlights in the rain, or at dusk or dawn, who run red lights.

Some, no doubt, do these things wantonly. Others, perhaps most, have simply forgotten -- forgotten the laws, forgotten the need to slow down and think about the laws. What they -- what most all of us -- need is a time-out, an occasional reminder. That's what a driver's license renewal should be.

If we want to make our highways a little less dangerous (they're now the third most dangerous in the nation), we need to toughen the license renewal process. We could require a written test, either one that's difficult enough to send some people back to the Driver's Manual (available at www.scdps.org/dmv/) or else one in which the questions are designed in such a way as to teach people, to remind people of the laws, and of their responsibilities, behind the wheel. Doing that might cost a little more, but a driver's license is a bargain as it is: For $12.50 you get to drive for five years, and you get a universal identification card too boot.

Unfortunately, this isn't what we're doing. Unfortunately, we're doing just the opposite. Both the Legislature and the Division of Motor Vehicles are trying to make it easier to keep driving.

Next month, the Division of Motor Vehicles expects to finally put some of the most exciting capabilities of Operation Phoenix in place, allowing drivers to handle a host of routine transactions over the Internet. For the most part, this is a good thing, and eventually it will make the last year's painful waits and screw-ups worthwhile. The problem is that one of the transactions that will move to the web is driver's license renewals.

It's true that the DMV already lets us renew our licenses by mail, so long as we have clean driving records. But that's a bulky process, without the cachet of Internet transactions. We expect that lots more people will take advantage of this new option, which means lots more people will be driving around with badly outdated driver's license photos, and there will be lots more opportunities for fraud. Beyond that, there's something about going through the hassle of an in-person license renewal that tends to enforce the seriousness of the driving privilege, to at least perform a tad of that slowing-down function we need.

Meanwhile, the Legislature is poised to pass a law that doubles the life of a driver's license, to 10 years. That compounds the problem. At least now, some drivers (those with five or more points) have to pass a knowledge test in order to have their licenses renewed. A 10-year license means they'll go up to 10 years without having to pass that test.

Most of the changes the DMV is about to implement in the name of improved customer service are commendable. Most of the changes the Legislature is about to pass in the name of reforming DMV are commendable. The changes to the driver's license renewal process are not. They are a step in the wrong direction. They need to be reversed. Better to maintain the status quo than to make it worse. Better still to put the driver's license renewal process to work for our safety.