Repeat Drunk Drivers to Have the Cars Seized

Drunk driving is a phenomenon that plagues the automotive world ever since the first set of four wheels turned, in unison, for the very first time. Since then, governments, organizations and law enforcement agencies have tried to put an end to it but, despite the harshness of the measures to be taken against drunk driver, there seems to be no stopping the phenomenon.

The UK is about to try a different approach, on a large scale, if the set of measures currently under review will pass. In Scotland, all those who get caught driving while intoxicated two times, risk having their car confiscated. Since that appears to be working in the land of Whisky (since 2009, 357 repeat offenders have been caught, 105 cars seized and 72 confiscated permanently), the government is now looking to expand the reach of that measure to England and Wales as well.

The call for this extreme measure is encouraged and has been called for by the increasing number of offenses recorded in the past few years. According to the government data, the number of people that have received at least the second ban for drunk driving grew from 13,299 in 2000 to 19,605 in 2009.

“We will consider whether more use can be made of the loss of a vehicle as a penalty to be used by the courts,” the Department for Transport said in a statement according to The Telegraph. “This may be particularly useful where there is a high risk of disqualified drivers continuing to drive. We will explore whether sentencing guidelines should be strengthened.”