A disabled driver who made a statutory complaint over being held up for less than two minutes when a toll bridge camera misread his car’s number plate has lost his discrimination claim.
The Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) has rejected a claim under the Equal Status Act 2000 against North Link M1 Ltd, the operator of the tolled section of the M1 motorway in counties Meath and Louth.
The claimant, David Tyrell, is a beneficiary of the Disability Toll Exemption Scheme (DTES), which allows adapted vehicles for disabled drivers to use toll roads for free, the WRC heard last month.
On October 2nd, 2024, Mr Tyrell arrived to a toll plaza on the M1 motorway and proceeded into an unmanned lane. His car’s registration “appeared on the screen”, but the barrier did not open, he said in evidence.
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The control room operator on the day, Louise McMullen, said she asked Mr Tyrell if he had paid because she “did not know he was exempt”.
When an issue arose, she “realised there had to be a digit missing” from the registration number captured on the system, and that was why she asked him to call out the number and proceeded to search the plate number on the motor tax system.
Ms McMullen said this took a minute to do.
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She acknowledged that she did tell him: “If you use the operator lanes in the future, it’ll be quicker.”
Mr Tyrell’s position was that he “should be allowed to use unmanned toll lanes just as non-disabled drivers do”. He also contended that he should not have had to speak with the worker about his status as a beneficiary of the toll exemption scheme as it meant disclosing his disability to his passenger, he said.
Sinead Morgan of DAC Beachcroft, appearing for the toll operator, submitted that the DTES guidelines advised pass-holders to use a manned lane so that if a registration plate was misread by the system, “a staff member can quickly see a DTES disc and lift the barrier without any questions being asked”. Mr Tyrell accepted under cross-examination that he had not read the DTES guidelines.
Adjudicator Emile Daly accepted Mr Tyrell “did not know all this” in regard to how the system worked and that he believed discrimination was at play when he took his claim.
