FOI 255-2025 / Feb 2025 / Splashing pedestrians
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST REFERENCE NO: 255-2025
I write in connection with your request for information which was received on 25th February 2025 as follows:
Splashing pedestrians by driving through standing water is illegal under Section 3 of the Road Traffic Act of 1988.
Please can you provide, for the area covered by Warwickshire Police, the total number of fixed penalty notices and/or offences recorded in 2024 to motorists for splashing pedestrians?
Please find the Warwickshire Police response set out below.
Response: Section 1 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, places two duties on public authorities. Unless exemptions apply, the first duty at Section 1(1)(a) is to confirm or deny whether the information specified in a request is held. The second duty at Section 1(1)(b) is to disclose information that has been confirmed as being held.
On this occasion, Warwickshire Police are unable to confirm whether or not any information is held in relation to Fixed Penalty Notices issued to motorists for splashing pedestrians, and Section 12(2) applies.
Section 12(2) states: “…Subsection (1) does not exempt the public authority from its obligation to comply with paragraph (a) of section 1(1) unless the estimated cost of complying with that paragraph alone would exceed the appropriate limit.”
Splashing pedestrians with standing water whilst driving is not recorded as an offence of its own, rather it would be recorded as an offence of ‘Drive a mechanically propelled vehicle on a road / in a public place without due care and attention’. The business area has conducted searches for all such offences, recorded in 2024, and advised that there were 597 in total. In order to determine whether any of those offences contain reference to a driver splashing pedestrians it would be necessary to manually review each and every one on an individual basis. At an estimate of 5 minutes per record, this would equate to in excess of 49 hours of work. Therefore, the cost of complying with paragraph (a) of section 1(1), would be above the amount to which we are legally required to respond, i.e., the cost of confirming or denying whether any information specified in this part of the request is held, exceeds the ‘appropriate level’ as stated in the Freedom of Information (Fees and Appropriate Limit) Regulations 2004. For Police forces in the UK, the "appropriate limit" is considered to be up to 18 hours of work on one request.
In accordance with Section 12(2) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, this letter acts as a Refusal Notice for this part of the request, and, if one part of a request exceeds the fees limit, then Section 12 of the Act applies to the whole request.
In accordance with Section 16 of the Act, I have a duty to provide advice and assistance in relation to refining your request; however, I am unable to suggest a way to reduce this part of the request into one which could be managed within the fees limit on this occasion.
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