Last month, the Latvian government approved a plan to donate cars seized from drunk drivers to Ukraine, in what the government says is a creative plan (or should we say a publicity stunt) to support the war effort there.
The first car collection has already been delivered, the BBC last week confirmed that “eight seized vehicles left the car park in the capital, Riga, on Wednesday and will soon cross the border”.
The cars will reportedly go to the Ukrainian army and hospitals. A large proportion of vehicles were impounded in Latvia in the past, as compared to the size of the population, this is where the most drunk drivers in Europe.
Lawmakers attempted to address the problem last year. It was determined by law that the vehicle can be impounded if three times the permissible alcohol level is detected in the driver’s system.
“No one expected that people would drive so many vehicles drunk” said the NGO [Twitter Convoy] founder Reinis Poznaks to the Archyde.com news agency. “They can’t sell them as fast as people drink them. That’s why we came up with the idea – we send them to Ukraine”.
Since the confiscation law came into force, around two hundred cars have been taken from drunk drivers. Many, if not all, of these are now going to Ukraine.
Latvian Minister of Finance Arvils Aseradens said the following regarding the transport program: “We are ready to do practically anything to support the Ukrainians”.
Last week, a team of police closed off an entire road in Riga to carry out mass checks and screen out drunk drivers, but the raid was reportedly unsuccessful following traffic stopped for at least half an hour. Some officials and experts are now calling for the program to be rolled out more widely in Europe.
Published on the BitcoinBázis page.
