Does section 14602.6 of the California Vehicle Impound Act permit a police officer to impound a vehicle without arrest?

^8. It is doubtful that section 14602.6 provided authority for the impound here, as the People claim. It provides in relevant part that "[w]henever a peace officer determines that a person was driving a vehicle while his or her driving privilege was suspended . . . , the peace officer may either immediately arrest that person and cause the removal and seizure of that vehicle or, if the vehicle is involved in a traffic collision, cause the removal and seizure of the vehicle without the necessity of arresting the person . . . ." ( 14602.6, subd. (a)(1).) A California appellate court has interpreted this language to mean the arrest, if required, must occur before the vehicle search. (Thompson v. City of Petaluma (2014) 231 Cal.App.4th 101, 110 [section 14602.6 does not permit officers to "impound a vehicle when the driver has not been arrested and the vehicle has not been involved in an accident"].) Regardless, it would be surprising if the statute authorized an officer to "arrest" a suspectindeed, required arrest as a condition of the impound in most caseswithout probable cause that the suspect had committed some crime. We need not resolve this issue of state law.