Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Seizing someone’s car just because the driver doesn’t possess a license was ruled illegal five years ago by a federal court, but that hasn’t stopped cities in California from continuing to impound vehicles at sobriety checkpoints. A story by the Investigative Reporting Program at UC Berkeley found that municipalities are making millions of dollars from spot checks for drunk drivers, and that includes towing fees and fines resulting from the seizure of cars and trucks.
In 2009 alone, cities took in an extra $40 million from their checkpoints, while police officers made $30 million in overtime pay for manning them. Twenty-four thousand vehicles were impounded.
The investigative report also discovered that sobriety checkpoints tend to be set up in or near Hispanic neighborhoods which results in large seizures of cars driven by unlicensed individuals.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
Car Seizures at DUI Checkpoints Prove Profitable for Cities, Raise Legal Questions (by Ryan Gabrielson, California Watch)
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