Donate Your Car Sacramento

SACRAMENTO – California police agencies are using millions of dollars in federal funds to set up DUI checkpoints, but they are apparently more effective in finding unlicensed drivers than drunks, according to the Investigative Reporting Program at the University of California, Berkeley. Its examination also says that thousands of cars are being impounded for 30 days, apparently in defiance of a 2005 court ruling making declaring such impounds illegal.

State Senator Gil Cedillo says the impounds are taking focus away from finding DUI drivers in favor of targeting poor immigrant communities. Cedillo for years has pushed for allowing illegal immigrants get driver’s licenses so they can be tested and made to purchase auto insurance. He says taking cars from immigrants who need them is not what DUI checkpoints were intended to do. It can cost as much as $4,000 to pay for storage, fines and towing for a car impounded for 30 days. The report says municipalities share revenue with tow yards.

‘”They engage in it because it’s a revenue stream for them that they find is now lucrative,” said Cedillo.

DUI checkpoints uncover seven times more unlicensed drivers than drunk drivers, according to the report. Cedillo says in immigrant communities, that ratio is as much as 60 to one.

“It’s not effective, it’s not efficient, and now we’re finding it’s not constitutional,” said Cedillo.

The report cites a 2005 federal appellate court ruling that says cars can’t be taken from driver’s who don’t have a driver’s license.

But the State Office of Traffic Safety, which administers 14 million dollars in DUI Checkpoint funds from the federal government, says the case doesn’t apply because it was narrowly applied to a car owner whose car was taken from his driveway, not from a public roadway.

Office spokesman Chris Cochran says 20 percent of car crashes involve people without valid licenses. He says officers looking for drunk drivers at the checkpoints can’t ignore other violations.

“Whether they’re wearing a seatbelt, whether there’s a gun in the car…they should be cited for those also,” said Cochran.

Until the courts rule on a more recent case, the Office is telling local police agencies to continue with the impounds.

“As of now, we tell them to follow the law as it’s currently written,” said Cochran.

But many motorists feel a 30 day impound is too high a penalty for driving without a license.

“I think that’s very unfair,” said Pearl Medina, a waitress who has been stopped at DUI checkpoints several times.

She is in favor of getting drunk drivers off the road because they’re dangerous, but says using the checkpoints to confiscate cars from drivers who are driving safely in unwarranted.

“Nobody has the money to get their car out of 30 day impound,” she said

Don Berkstresser agrees.

“30 days is way too much. That puts a hardship on families,” said Berkstresser.

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