If you’re caught with a DUI in Latvia, your vehicle might just be getting shipped off to another country. Cars confiscated from drunk drivers in Latvia are being sent to Ukraine as a way to help the war effort.
Eight seized vehicles left a car pound in the Latvian capital of Riga and were sent to Ukraine. This is the first convoy to be sent under the plan, which was approved by the Latvian parliament last month. Members of parliament agreed to allow the transfer of state-owned cars to the Ukrainian military and hospitals.
Latvia also recently changed the law so that any drivers found with 1.5mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood — or three times the legal limit — could have their vehicles seized and sold by the government. This comes as a way to decrease the amount of drinking and driving that happens in the country, which has some of the worst rates in Europe.
Naturally, this new law saw a surge in confiscations that filled state pounds in just a few weeks. As a result, authorities agreed to give two dozen cars a week to Twitter Convoy, a Latvian charity that sends donated vehicles to Ukraine.
“No one expected that people are drunk-driving so many vehicles,” the NGO’s founder, Reinis Poznaks, said. “They can’t sell them as fast as people are drinking. So that’s why I came with the idea — send them to Ukraine.”