To think drunk drivers should lose their vehicles?

[SassyPearlEagle]

Just been reading about Latvia, they've had this law for 3 years and seized over 2,000 vehicles. They're either donated to Ukraine, or auctioned off to raise money for the police - one Ferrari was sold for 176,000 euros.

Why don't we do the same here? Stop pussyfooting around with fines and driving bans, just confiscate the bloody car as soon as the breath test is failed.

My dad was an alcoholic and crazy driver. As a terrified child sitting in the back I used to wish he'd get stopped. Losing his car would've been a quick and effective punishment, I think. So fucking tired of hearing about drink/drug drivers killing people.

Because you can’t take a car off a family that only have one car between two adults, leaving other adult in the shit with work/kids/other responsibilities that require said car

I get what you mean. I think in this case it’s more of a “no, sorry, a car can be very dangerous and you’ve lost the privilege.”

But I do agree with the issues around shared cars, and cars on finance. I don’t think it’s technically feasible even if I have no moral objection to it.

personally on the spot licence revocation with serious penalties for driving when banned

Well, they will have their license taken away. That is enough, and also the massive jump in insurance premiums when they drive again.

You technically don't have a license when banned from driving anyway.

Surely people will think about that before drink driving

It would affect poorer people much more to had a car confiscated.

They don't though. Drunks don't think. So why should the other owners of the car be punished?
Like I said, my dad is a cock and drink drives sometimes. My mum uses their car for her job.
If he was caught and the car destroyed, my mum would be stuffed.

I was that terrified kid in the back seat as Dad drove dangerously on dark, narrow country roads whilst mum tried to get him to slow down BUT..

If Dad had lost the car, mum would have been stuck in a very rural area, no buses, no way to get us to and from school or go shopping for food. Mum didn't own any cars, had no income of her own and was in an abusive relationship - how would having no access to a car have helped her situation or us kids?

Plus, Dad often owned several cars at the same time in various levels of delapidation and being 'done up'. Would he have lost just the car he was driving when caught drunk driving or all of them?

These sorts of punitive ideas always seem good until the detail has to be worked out, when it all gets too complicated.

Stop pussyfooting around with fines and driving bans

by confiscating the car and skipping fines and bans people can just go out and buy a new car.

So all the well off drivers would just buy another car or use another one they had and the family of the poorer drivers wouldn't have a car, that sounds well thought out OP

Hey kids, sorry you're homeless but your mum was over the limit.

It seems that Poland, Bulgaria and Belarus also have similar laws. If these countries can manage it sensibly, I'm not sure why we can't.

This is not instead of driving ban, it's in addition to.

How do they manage it when the car is jointly owned?

Ok, the first time it could be returned to the other driver in the family and the drunk banned from driving (in general and that car specifically as well).

That happens anyway. Drunks get banned for a while.

Not in the OP it's not

Drunk drivers often do lose their vehicles and have to go looking for them in the morning.

Presumably if you did it: if it was a jointly held car you'd make an application to get it back, if it was a lease your lease would be terminated and it would be returned to the lease company as it wouldn't be yours for the police the confiscate. They don't seem insurmountable problems to me, especially given it is a law it's pretty easy to avoid breaking.

I'd probably personally go for fines proportional to income/assets personally because I think people might take the piss with the monthly held car but, but I certainly agree that fixed fines aren't much use.

I would like the drivers punished in all possible ways. Whatever we're doing right now is not enough.

Kick them in the balls, throw 'em in the stocks, rent a volcano from Iceland and drop repeat offenders in there, I don't really care

Drink driving limit should be dropped to trace levels, and drink drivers should get a life time ban.

I think this idea has merits in theory. I don’t know how other countries manage it but as other posters have said there needs to be provision for co-owners or where other usual drivers would be disadvantaged. Forced change of ownership might be difficult but the onus is always on the insured to ensure a banned driver/uninsured person doesn’t drive the car. I don’t know if you can insure a vehicle if you don’t own it. Give other essential drivers the option to take over the lease if the car is leased.

I think the licence ban should continue though, whatever else is implemented.

In an age where we can ‘tag’ and use GPS to location monitor criminals and black boxes to monitor driving we should be able to make inroads (sorry for the pun) into ensuring banned drivers don’t get behind the wheel of a car for the period of their ban.

A few other points…. Court fines are proportional to income, as long as people are honest (!?) about their income.

Lifetime bans would be seen to set people up to fail, a bit like life sentences.

A prison sentence would probably be better but that won't happen because there is no room

Not sure, can't be arsed to search for details right now, here are some articles to start with.

Poland Belarus Bulgaria