Wednesday, October 22, 2014



Are the police using ANPR to target the disabled?

The media this morning is full of stories of the paralysed man caught driving using a walking stick to reach the pedals. Its good that he's off the road, but there's one point in the story which raises questions:

The driver was caught at an automatic number plate recognition checkpoint this morning.

He had held a learner licence since 2002. He also had two passengers, neither of whom were licensed to drive.


So why was he in the ANPR database? Did he have a prior record of dangerous driving (which might justify inclusion), or are the police automatically classing disabled drivers as dangerous and databasing them as such - in which case there's a serious discrimination issue? I think we deserve some answers on this, and fast.