Nearly ten years ago, a lorry driver known only as ‘Michael Harry K’ adopted an extreme response to combating what he saw as declining standards on the autobahns: he started shooting at other vehicles. In a four-year spree he fired around 700 rounds at cars and trucks before his arrest in June 2013.
What helped him evade justice for so long was the same thing that prevents us learning his full name: German privacy laws. Trucks pay tolls on autobahns, and so CCTV records the number plates of vehicles passing through toll booths. After the first 30 shootings, it could have been a routine procedure to identify the one vehicle in the right places at the right times. But the police were not allowed to see the data.
It’s hard to imagine this happening in Britain.
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