- Police across the United Kingdom seized a total of at least 214,051 vehicles in 2023.
- The number one reason for confiscation was that a given vehicle was being driven without insurance, or by an unlicensed driver.
- Dundee, Scotland, was the region of the country where the most vehicles were seized.
Having your car seized can lead to major headaches if you’re a driver, and by that logic, U.K. police caused a lot of cranial pain last year. Across the country, the constabulary seized a total of at least 214,051 vehicles in 2023, or a little more than 586 per day.
The reasons for the seizures varied widely, but the top cause was people driving without a license or insurance. Rates of uninsured or unlicensed driving were up in 2023 when police seized 56,707 vehicles for being caught without the right paperwork, as opposed to a year earlier when 44,290 drivers were nabbed.
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Not all vehicle seizures were of undamaged vehicles, according to National Scrap Car, which received data from 26 out of the UK’s 45 police forces. Within those areas, police seized 49,278 vehicles last year because they had been involved in a traffic accident, up from 40,305 a year earlier. In most cases, these vehicles were either undrivable, or being kept as evidence.
The third most common reason police seized a vehicle was that it had been reported as part of a theft. In all, authorities recovered 28,448 vehicles under these circumstances, an increase of nearly 10,000 over a year earlier.
Top 5 Reasons For Seizure
Police also seized a surprising number of abandoned vehicles last year, and it was the fourth-most common reason for confiscation. If you’re concerned about your car’s status, it can be helpful to move it, as police tend to look for vehicles that have been stationary a long time, have damage, and have no registered keeper.
By region, the people of Dundee, Scotland, were the most likely to have their vehicle seized. Police in the region confiscated an impressive 23,344 vehicles in 2023, but 83 percent were eventually returned to their owners. Unfortunately, around 17 percent of the region’s seized vehicles were later destroyed by the police or sold at auction.
The West Midlands was also a hotspot, and the constabulary seized 23,203 vehicles in the region last year. The good news for road users in the area is that the number of seizures was down from a year earlier, when 24,514 vehicles were seized.