Stream of consciousness from a thought I had last night...
Whenever I put a video of bad driving online (which is thankfully infrequently) I always get someone asking me to put the number plate into the header and body text so that someone searching for it could find it.
Now I never do. It's not for any other reason than I don't want to (and no, putting a number plate online in such a video does not breach data protection laws, it's not 'sensitive personal information', and for one thing it's something that's permanently displayed in public).
Anyway, I got to wondering after seeing a news report on the top three driver gripes (clearly they didn't ask about cyclists as they were tailgating, using a mobile phone while driving, and lane hogging). They showed a video of a white van man tailgating (an unmarked police car - snigger) and blanked out the number plate. And in a moment I had an unexpected instant of clarity.
What if the car or van gets sold? I'll watch videos of poor driving from a couple of years back, but hey, within a month that car could be sold on to someone else. That may no longer be a car to look out for and worry about. That driver may not be justified the glowering looks of cyclists who have remembered the make, model, and number plate.
I'm going to continue not putting the plate in the titles of videos (equally if it's visible in the video I'm not going to go to lengths to obscure it).
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