Vehicle impoundments improve drinking and driving licence suspension outcomes: Large-scale evidence from Ontario

• Vehicle impoundment increases drinking and driving licence suspension compliance.
• Vehicle impoundment reduces short-term D&D recidivism.
• Reduction in D&D recidivism could be through enhanced suspension compliance.
• Effects might require impoundment for both D&D and for driving while suspended.

Although vehicle impoundment has become a common sanction for various driving offences, large-scale evaluations of its effectiveness in preventing drinking and driving recidivism are almost non-existent in the peer-reviewed literature. One reason is that impoundment programs have typically been introduced simultaneously with other countermeasures, rendering it difficult to disentangle any observed effects. Previous studies of impoundment effectiveness conducted when such programs were implemented in isolation have typically been restricted to small jurisdictions, making high-quality evaluation difficult. In contrast, Ontario’s “long-term” and “seven-day” impoundment programs were implemented in relative isolation, but with tight relationships to already existing drinking and driving suspensions. In this work, we used offence data produced by Ontario’s population of over 9 million licensed drivers to perform interrupted time series analysis on drinking and driving recidivism and on rates of driving while suspended for drinking and driving. Our results demonstrate two key findings: (1) impoundment, or its threat, improves compliance with drinking and driving licence suspensions; and (2) addition of impoundment to suspension reduces drinking and driving recidivism, possibly through enhanced suspension compliance.