FOI 895-2024 / Oct 2024 / Motorcycle accidents
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST REFERENCE NO: 895-2024
I write in connection with your request for information which was received on 9th October 2024 as follows:
I would like to request the following information, recorded by your police force, for the calendar years 2021, 2022, and 2023:
- The number of motorcycle accidents resulting in: a) Death, b) Serious injury
For each accident, please include the following details (if available):
- Likely cause or contributing factors (e.g., speeding, road conditions, etc.).
- Was the motorcyclist wearing a helmet? (Yes/No/Unknown/Not Recorded).
- The time of day the incident occurred, using the following time brackets:
00:00-06:00 (Early Morning)
06:01-12:00 (Morning)
12:01-18:00 (Afternoon)
18:01-00:00 (Evening/Night).
- Gender of the motorcyclist involved (if recorded).
- The number of driving offences committed by motorcyclists, (e.g., speeding, not holding a valid licence, not wearing a helmet).
For each offence, please include:
- The gender of the rider (if recorded).
- The number of motorbike thefts recorded.
Please accept my sincere apologies for the delay in providing the response to your request and for any inconvenience that this may have caused you. Please find the Warwickshire Police response set out below.
Response: Please be advised that not all of the requested information is held in a readily retrievable format.
For Q2, in order to identify offences specifically relating to motorcycles it would be necessary to create two reports for each year requested, one for speeding captured by the Camera Enforcement Unit, and the other for those offences captured by officers, to include the make and model of vehicles. It would then be necessary to manually review all entries to identify which are motorcycles. In 2021 the total number of speeding offences captured by the Camera Enforcement Unit was 56,006, in 2022 there were 93,331 and in 2023 there were 181,518. For the other offences those captured by officers in 2021 there were 2816, in 2022 there were 3455 and in 2023 there were 2534. This makes a total of 339,660 offences and, even at one minute per vehicle to identify and collate, this would equate to in excess of 5660 hours of work.
For Q3, there is no specific identifier to isolate theft of a motorcycle and such circumstances would be recorded as ‘Theft of a Motor Vehicle’. In order to determine the number of such offences which involved the theft of a motorcycle, it would be necessary to manually review each and every offence on an individual basis. There was a total of 642 offences recorded in 2021, 1077 in 2022 and 1045 in 2023, making a total of 2764 offences across the entire period. At a very conservative estimate of 2 minutes per record to review, this would equate to over 90 hours of work.
Therefore, the work involved in locating, retrieving, and recording the information requested exceeds the cost threshold of £450, which equates to 18 hours work at a standard rate of £25 per hour, as stated in the Freedom of Information (Fees and Appropriate Limit) Regulations 2004.
In accordance with s12(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, this letter acts as a Refusal Notice for this request.
In accordance with Section 16 of the Act I have a duty to provide advice and assistance in relation to your request; however, due to the volume of records involved, I am unable to suggest a way to revise these elements of your request to ones which could be carried out within the fees limit. However, I can advise that it may be possible to conduct searches for Q1 within the fees limit; however, it should be noted that with regard to the question whether a motorcyclist was wearing a helmet, this information is not contained within a field that is electronically reportable; therefore, in order to determine this information it would be necessary to review each collision to check if a helmet was worn. Depending on the number of records retrieved this may result in searches taking in excess of 18 hours for this element alone, which you may wish to take into consideration when resubmitting your request. Please note that any revised request would be subject to the usual disclosure considerations.
Every effort has been made to ensure that the information provided is as accurate as possible.
Your attention is drawn to the below which details your right of complaint.
Should you have any further enquiries concerning this matter, please write or email the Freedom of Information Unit quoting the reference number above.
Yours sincerely
Freedom of Information Officer
Freedom of Information Unit
Warwickshire Police
PO Box 4
Leek Wootton
Warwickshire
CV35 7QB