Vehicle Impoundment

In employing this sanction — which is applied primarily against hardcore drunk drivers — an offender’s vehicle is seized and stored in a compound. In most states, a DWI offender’s vehicle can be impounded overnight. The impoundment is longer if the offender is a recidivist or is caught driving with a suspended license. Application of the sanction varies among jurisdictions. Some target drivers who violate license suspension, while others use the sanction only after repeated DWI convictions. In San Francisco, police can impound the vehicles of unlicensed or suspended drivers for up to 30 days. Those who claim their vehicles must pay towing and storage fees, plus a $150 administrative fee. The total for a 30-day impoundment can reach $1,000. In some jurisdictions, impoundment is a component of a vehicle impoundment/forfeiture law.

Where Is Vehicle Impoundment Used?

Until recently, few jurisdictions operated active impoundment programs. However, in the past few years there has been a dramatic increase in new program implementation. Fifteen states, the District of Columbia and two territories use vehicle impoundment as a sanction, according to the National Hardcore Drunk Driver Project Survey. In California, a pilot vehicle impoundment program was developed by the Santa Rosa Police Department and modified by San Francisco. Based on the success of the San Francisco program, the state’s Office of Traffic Safety has awarded grants to 13 more cities to start vehicle impoundment programs.

How Effective Is Vehicle Impoundment?

Although the San Francisco program is not aimed solely at drunk driving offenders, safety officials credit the vehicle impoundment law with having a tremendous impact on drunk driving. In the San Francisco program’s first two years, it is credited with a 63 percent drop in alcohol-related fatal and injury collisions and a 43 percent reduction in hit-and-run fatal and injury collisions. Police say a key to the program’s success is its violator-paid administrative fees, which fund a district attorney to prosecute resulting cases. Through San Francisco’s program, 7,016 vehicles were impounded in 1995 and 7,293 in 1996.

A study in California of more than 6,300 unlicensed, suspended or revoked drivers whose vehicles were impounded found they had fewer subsequent traffic convictions than those whose vehicles were not. Repeat offenders whose vehicles were impounded had 22 percent fewer traffic convictions and 38 percent fewer crashes than those whose vehicles had not been impounded.

A 1998 study in Hamilton County, Ohio, which keeps the offender’s vehicle impounded throughout the entire sanction period, found an 80 percent reduction in DWI recidivism among repeat offender participants. Encouragingly, recidivism reductions experienced during impoundment appear to continue even after the driver and vehicle are reunited. The Hamilton County study also found a 58 percent reduction in recidivism by repeat offenders once the sanction was lifted.

Other researchers have suggested vehicle impoundment be handled administratively by the state licensing agency. This move would leave courts free of the pressure to plea-bargain offenders away from this sanction.

Problems traditionally associated with vehicle impoundment include:

• a judicial reluctance to punish the offender’s family by depriving them use of a vehicle;
  
  
• inability of offenders to pay towing and storage costs;
  
  
• insufficient value of the vehicles seized to recoup the costs to the state when offenders fail to pay impoundment charges; and
  
  
• the lack of adequate storage facilities.

What Is the Cost of Vehicle Impoundment?

The cost is usually paid by the offender, but research shows the cost of storing the vehicles frequently exceeds their value, resulting in abandoned vehicles for which the locality must then pay the towing and storage bill.

In San Francisco, the vehicle impoundment program collected $1.5 million in violator-paid administrative fees in 1995 and 1996, an amount program administrators consider break-even. Among other expenses, the fees provide reimbursement for the costs of the program, police officers’ time, the dedicated district attorney and two clerks’ salaries. However, the city makes money by requiring offenders to pay outstanding parking tickets and to get valid registrations before the city will release the vehicles. Police estimate the city collects $500,000 yearly in parking fines alone through the impoundment program. Registration fees bring in additional revenues.

Where to Go for More Information on Vehicle Impoundment

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. July 1998. California impounds the vehicles of motorists caught driving without a valid license. Traffic Tech 180. Washington, DC: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Voas, R.B., Tippetts, A.S., and Taylor, E. 1998. Temporary vehicle impoundment in Ohio: A replication and confirmation. Accident Analysis And Prevention 30(5): 651–655.

California Office of Traffic Safety, 7000 Franklin Blvd., Suite 440, Sacramento, CA 95823; 916-262-0990.