2022/24964 - Driving Dangerously statistics.

REQUEST

I would like to request the following data, broken out by calendar year (and local authority location if possible), for the past 10 years starting with 2022 if available:

1. The number of drivers with ongoing driving disqualifications who have been caught still driving (by local authority area).
2. The number of drivers caught driving dangerously (according to police definition) (by local authority area).
3. The number of drivers caught parking dangerously (either by obstruction or by another suitable equivalent measure) (by local authority area).
4. The number of drivers caught driving without valid insurance (by local authority area).
5. The number of drivers caught failing to stop after an accident (by local authority area).
6. The number of drivers caught failing to report an accident (by local authority area).
7. All of the above who have been convicted as a result.

RESPONSE

Driving offences are recorded separately therefore we can only provide the arrests. These figures are based on footfall, this means each time someone checks into custody they will be counted once. Therefore, if they have been arrested for more than one offence in each category they will only be counted once.

Q.1-6 – Please see the attached spreadsheet.

Unfortunately, we cannot provide the geographical data for each borough, as it will exceed the 18-hour time limit to complete a request. There are over 4,000 records. In order to retrieve the data, each record would need to be reviewed. It would take approximately three minutes to review each individual record, which would equate to over 200 hours of research. Therefore, a Section 12 Excess Cost exemption has been applied.

Section 12 – Excess Cost

The exemption applicable to the information you have requested for this question can be found at Section 12(1) of the Act and this refusal notice is issued under Section 17.

Section 12(1) “does not oblige a public authority to comply with a request for information if the authority estimates that the cost of complying with the request would exceed the appropriate limit.” 

In the case of a police force, the appropriate limit is set at £450, which is calculated at £25 per hour (i.e., 18 hours). Gwent Police would have to conduct a manual search to find and extract the information for this question. This would take more than 18 hours of staff time therefore we are unable to answer this question and the exemption is engaged.

Q7. We cannot provide this data as the data belongs to the courts who issue the convictions. The number of convictions can be obtained from the courts.