2022/24980 - Drink Driving
REQUEST
- How many people have been arrested in the Gwent Police region for drink
driving since December 2020? Please provide a monthly breakdown.
- How many people have been arrested in the Gwent Wales Police region for drug
driving since December 2020?
- How many arrests were made in the Gwent Wales Police region for drink driving
following road traffic collisions which had occurred? Please provide a monthly
breakdown from December 2020 until the latest available data.
- How many deaths have occurred due to drink driving in the Gwent Wales Police
region since December 2020?
4a. Of those deaths, how many were travelling as passengers?
- How many people from the Gwent Wales Police region have been given a
sentence due to drink driving since December 2020.
5a. Of those, how many were given a “death by dangerous driving” sentence and
how many were given a “death by careless driving” sentence.
***Please provide the information in calendar years NOT fiscal.
RESPONSE
- How many people have been arrested in the Gwent Police region for drink
driving since December 2020? Please provide a monthly breakdown.
The below data is based on the number of custody records with a drink driving offence. If the person has been arrested for multiple offences they will be counted once however, if they have been arrested for the same offence on multiple occasions, they will be counted for each time they were brought to custody.
The drink driving offences included were:
- Drive motor vehicle when alcohol level above limit
- Drive whilst unfit through drink
- Attempt to drive vehicle whilst unfit through drink
- Attempt to drive motor vehicle - alcohol level above limit
- How many people have been arrested in the Gwent Wales Police region for drug
driving since December 2020?
The below data is based on the number of custody records with a drink driving offence. If the person has been arrested for multiple offences they will be counted once however, if they have been arrested for the same offence on multiple occasions, they will be counted for each time they were brought to custody.
The drug driving offences included were:
- Drive motor vehicle with a proportion of a specified controlled drug above the specified limit
- Drive a vehicle whilst unfit through drugs
- Attempt to drive vehicle whilst unfit through drugs
- Attempt to drive a motor vehicle with a proportion of a specified controlled drug above the specified limit
- How many arrests were made in the Gwent Wales Police region for drink driving
following road traffic collisions which had occurred? Please provide a monthly
breakdown from December 2020 until the latest available data.
In order to establish if the arrest for drink driving occurred after an RTC, each custody record would need to be checked and the data log for the offence read to see if a RTC was involved this would exceed the 18 hour limit.
589 (drink driving custody records) x 2 minutes would equate to 19.63 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.
- How many deaths have occurred due to drink driving in the Gwent Wales Police
region since December 2020?
Again, this would be a manual trawl of the data which would exceed the 18 hours (see the above exemption). Alternatively, the custody records that contain a drink driving offence AND a cause death by dangerous driving offence have been reviewed.
There were 3 custody records that had both types of offences – they were reviewed in sure both offences were linked to the same incident which they were.
4a. Of those deaths, how many were travelling as passengers?
Based on the data reviewed above only 1 incident involved a victim who a passenger in a car.
- How many people from the Gwent Wales Police region have been given a
sentence due to drink driving since December 2020.
5a. Of those, how many were given a “death by dangerous driving” sentence and
how many were given a “death by careless driving” sentence.
Both question 5 and 5a cannot be answered as this is court data – therefore the information is held by the courts.