Impounded: Hawke’s Bay Police get 155 high-risk vehicles off the road

The focus was ensuring disqualified, suspended, and forbidden drivers were held to account.

Police in Hawke’s Bay impounded 155 vehicles in a month-long operation aimed at getting high-risk drivers off the roads.

It was more than double the monthly average for impoundments in the region, and also led to Eastern Police District breath-tests rocketing to 24,318 in September 2024, more than double the number for September 2023.

Road Policing Constable Mark Catley said the focus was ensuring disqualified, suspended, and forbidden drivers are held to account, leading to vehicles being impounded when they were stopped.

It was the latest of several such campaigns over the years, including a similar focus in 2022, and one which targeted boy-racing a year earlier.

Working with partner agency the Ministry of Justice, they also targeted people with unpaid fines, whose vehicles were also able to be seized, and all drivers stopped were standardly put through breath-testing procedures, but in a release this week there were no details for the number of failures.

“Enforcing mandatory impounds for driving while suspended/disqualified or forbidden, is removing vehicles from high-risk drivers and offenders, and limiting their means of getting around and committing crime and victimising the general public,” Catley said.

The campaign, known as Operation Tow, coinciding with Operation Putiki in the Gisborne Tairāwhiti district, was also an opportunity to increase the focus on the four corners of road safety issues - restraints, impairment, distraction and excessive (RIDS).

All drivers that were stopped were breath-tested and police were also on-watch for people not wearing seatbelts, using their cell phones while driving, and speeding, he said.

Catley said that on average Hawke’s Bay Police impounds 60-80 vehicles a month, of which about one-third are not reclaimed by their owners and are disposed of.

“Many vehicles that don’t get claimed are unroadworthy and a safety issue,” he said. “Reducing the amount of these vehicles on our roads contributes to safer roads for all road users.”

Doug Laing is a senior reporter based in Napier with Hawke’s Bay Today, and has 51 years of journalism experience, 41 of them in Hawke’s Bay, in news gathering, including breaking news, sports, local events, issues, and personalities.