Nearly $1 Million In Cars Confiscated From Latvian Drunk Drivers Head To Ukraine

The country with the highest drunk driving rate in Europe has been sending confiscated cars to Ukraine to help in the war effort against Russia for over a year now and, by Christmas Eve, the country managed to move another 271 cars to frontline fighters, and that’s not all.

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As a reminder: Russia is still waging war in the former USSR-state of Ukraine. Just last month, Latvia banned cars registered in Russia from driving in the country. Such cars, along with the cars of drunk drivers are also confiscated and sent to Ukraine. The country has managed to collect over 1,100 different cars for the war effort, with an additional 34 cars on the way, according to Yahoo! News:

Since the initiative began, over 1,100 different cars, with a total value of about €2 million ($2.2 million), have been sent from Latvia to Ukraine, with convoys departing weekly.

Currently, the government is preparing documents for the transfer of an additional 34 cars to Ukraine, valued at €161,880 ($177,000).

The Latvian Seimas (the parliament) unanimously adopted amendments to the Law on Civil Population Support for Ukraine on Feb. 16 of this year, allowing the free transfer of confiscated state-owned vehicles to the ownership of the Ukrainian government as support for Ukrainian society.

Sending confiscated cars to Ukraine doesn’t just help out that country’s war effort; Latvia seizes so many cars from drunk drivers that the country was running out of lots to hold them. In 2022, 4,300 drivers in Latvia were arrested for driving with excessive blood-alcohol levels. It’s only drivers found at three time legal levels who have their cars confiscated, and that still seems like a hell of a lot of cars for a country with a population of less than two million.

The cars go to a non-profit dedicated to getting vehicles to the soldiers who need them most. From Reuters:

“No-one expected that people are drunk-driving so many vehicles,” the NGO’s founder, Reinis Poznaks, told Reuters news agency. “They can’t sell them as fast as people are drinking. So that’s why I came with the idea – send them to Ukraine.”

Right-hand drive trucks in particular are needed, as snipers ended up aiming for the passenger seat, thinking they’d hit the driver.