The Latvian government has been donating confiscated cars from drunk drivers to Ukraine since this week. The warehouses in Latvia are overflowing with confiscated cars. The cars must end up with the army and hospitals in Ukraine.
On Wednesday, seven drunken cars were loaded onto a trailer for Ukraine. In the past two months, the Baltic state government has confiscated as many as 200 cars from heavily intoxicated drivers.
“No one expected that so many cars are driven by drunk people,” says the director of Twitter Convoy, the organization that transports the cars. According to him, the government can do little with it. “They can’t sell the cars as fast as people are drinking.”
In Latvia, 4,300 motorists were arrested last year with too much alcohol in their blood. And alcohol was involved in almost a thousand traffic accidents that same year. “It’s actually very scary when you consider how many cars are driving around with drunk drivers,” says the director.
Twitter Convoy has already delivered about twelve hundred cars since the Russian invasion of Ukraine more than a year ago. Latvian Finance Minister Arvils Aseradens has said that the government has been inspired by the organisation’s success. The government would like to contribute by donating its confiscated cars. “We want to do almost everything to support the Ukrainians,” says the minister.
