The primary supply of automobiles seized from drunk drivers in Latvia set off for Ukrainian entrance strains Wednesday as a part of a brand new program designed to maintain drunks off the streets and help within the conflict effort towards Russia.
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Latvia’s new legislation permitting the federal government to grab the autos of any driver discovered behind the wheel at thrice the authorized blood alcohol content material degree went into impact on the primary of this 12 months. This system has confirmed to be just a little too profitable. The nation has the very best price of drunk driving in all of Europe, BBC experiences, with 4,300 drivers discovered to be driving over the authorized restrict final 12 months.
Within the first two months of 2023, authorities seized 200 autos from severely sauced drivers. With impound heaps rapidly filling up the federal government discovered it couldn’t public sale them off quick sufficient to make room for much more.
As an alternative the federal government has vowed to ship two dozen automobiles per week to the entrance line in Ukraine through the nonprofit Twitter Convoy. From BBC:
“No-one anticipated that persons are drunk-driving so many autos,” the NGO’s founder, Reinis Poznaks, instructed Reuters information company. “They’ll’t promote them as quick as persons are ingesting. In order that’s why I got here with the concept – ship them to Ukraine.”
The primary eight automobiles had a mixed worth of about €18,500 (£16,500), in accordance with Latvian web site Delfi. One proprietor had left a Russian flag pinned on his seized car, Reuters reported.
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The Twitter Convoy has supplied 1,200 autos to Ukraine hospitals and the nation’s army. The NGO has additionally elevate greater than $2 million to buy autos in addition to help with infrastructure and logistic, Reuters experiences.
Struggle impacts each facet of life and passenger automobiles aren’t any exception. We’ve seen the humble Chevy Aveo transporting anti-tank weaponry whereas the nation’s welders are busy outfitting common automobiles for front-line work. Proper-hand drive autos from the UK specifically are a godsend, as Russian snipers making an attempt to shoot drivers normally purpose for the left. And in case you assume autos are being focused simply in Ukraine, assume once more. Russia’s EV chargers have been shut down by the Ukrainian firm that developed the software program to run these chargers. The corporate even managed to program anti-Putin messaging on the shows.
