In mid-December 2022, an amendment to the Criminal Code Act and some other laws were published in the Official Gazette. The amendment
toughened penalties for the most serious crimes, with the introduction of the possibility of life sentencing without appeal and the confiscation of cars from drunk drivers.
According to the law, the confiscation provisions were to come into force one year after its implementation (December 2023), but this date was postponed by a later amendment to the Civil Procedure Code Act.
Although the vehicle confiscation provisions have already come into effect it is unclear whether they will actually work. Deputy head of the Ministry of Justice Arkadiusz Myrcha told commercial station Radio Zet on Wednesday that the new
law will be “dead in practice”, as there are no ready-made implementing acts.
The current
Ministry of Justice leadership has proposed abandoning the provision for mandatory seizure of a motor vehicle driven by the offender in favor of making forfeiture optional. Also to be introduced is a new system for the awarding of a sum of money for the benefit of the Fund for Victims' Aid and Post-Penitentiary Assistance.
As the regulation currently stands, an intoxicated driver with
at least 1.5 per mille of alcohol in his blood will face seizure of their car, and this is regardless of whether he/she caused a traffic accident. Confiscation will also be applied if the driver causes a crash, brings an imminent danger of a serious accident or causes a traffic accident with more than a 1% blood alcohol content.
‘An effective deterrent’
“
Confiscation of a vehicle for driving under the influence of alcohol is a harsh punishment, but as the experience of other European countries shows, it can be an effective deterrent to committing these crimes,” Motor Transport Institute (ITS) spokesman Mikolaj Krupiński assessed.
“Even a small amount of alcohol (0.5 per mille in the body can increase reaction time by up to three times) in the blood can negatively affect driving ability and pose a threat to the safety of other road users,” Krupinski noted.
Road safety statistics
Data from the Police Headquarters shows that
in 2023, drivers under the influence of alcohol caused 1,331 traffic accidents; 189 of them were fatal. In accidents caused by drivers under the influence of alcohol, 212 people were killed and 1,506 were injured.
In the past five years, the highest number of such accidents (1,656) was recorded in 2020. The same year also saw the highest number of fatalities, with 216 people killed as a result of accidents caused by drivers under the influence of alcohol.
