THOUSANDS of road menaces in Suffolk have had their cars seized by police officers - and 67 of them ended up like this.

THOUSANDS of road menaces in Suffolk have had their cars seized by police officers - and 67 of them ended up like this.

Operation Admiral, which aims to clamp down on drivers who flout the law in the county, saw more than 2,027 vehicles taken off the road last year it emerged today.

Of them 1,161 were seized due to the driver not having insurance, 157 due to driving license offences and 709 for both offences.

In more than 90 per cent of the cases the drivers were on the road without insurance, which can have devastating consequences for law-abiding road users.

Many of the seizures are made following hits from Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) technology.

ANPR cameras in the police vehicles read the number plates of passing traffic and via a link with the Police National Computer database automatically identify those vehicles that appear to have no insurance.

Sergeant Simon Hobson of the ANPR team said: “Operation Admiral aims to specifically target those people who drive without the appropriate legal documents with no regard for the safety of others.

“It is important that we protect those who are using our roads legally. Often the vehicles that are seized are not roadworthy and by removing them from our roads we are helping to reduce potential casualties.

“In our experience there is a link between criminality and offenders who commit vehicle document offences. This enforcement campaign is a powerful means of disrupting criminal activity and denying criminals the use of the roads.”