E-bike incidents 1007/2024
FOI Reference: 1007/2024
Request:
- Please could you provide me with the number of reported casualties in accidents/collisions involving e-bikes (electric bikes) for each of the following calendar years:
a) 2020
b) 2021
c) 2022
d) 2023
e) 2024 to date
- For each of the calendar years outlined in Q1, please could you provide a breakdown of the reported casualties in Q1 by the following categories:
i) Killed
ii) Serious injury
iii) Slight injury
iv) Total
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.
I can confirm that the cost of determining whether any information relative to this request is or isn’t held is above the amount to which we are legally required to respond therefore we are withholding the whole of the requested information since we consider that the Section 12 (2) exemption the Cost of Compliance exceeds the Appropriate Limit applies to it.
Where exemptions are relied upon Section 17 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 requires Dyfed Powys Police, when refusing to provide such information (because the information is exempt) to provide you the applicant with a notice which: (a) states that fact, (b) specifies the exemption in question and (c) states (if that would not otherwise be apparent) why the exemption applies. The following exemption has been applied to the whole of the information you have requested:
Section 12(2) – The cost of compliance exceeds the Appropriate Limit
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.”
The cost of determining what information is held, if any, relevant to your request is above the amount to which we are legally required to respond i.e. the cost of locating and retrieving the information exceeds the “appropriate level” as stated in the Freedom of Information (Fees and Appropriate Limit) Regulations 2004. It is estimated that it would exceed 18 hours (i.e. minimum of 4360 hours) to comply with your request. The regulations can be located @
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2004/3244
The Freedom of Information Department has been advised that the information in relation to the whole request is not held in an easily retrievable format. This is due to the fact that in order to ascertain if there is any information held relevant to your request, every RTC record during the timeframe specified would require interrogation in order to establish whether any of the incidents related to e-bikes (electric bikes), and then to identify if there were any casualties and whether details of any injuries were recorded. The relevant time estimate is detailed below.
2020 – 4608 records
2021 – 5543 records
2022 – 5707 records
2023 – 5728 records
2024 to date – 4578 records
Total: 26164 records
It takes an average 10 minutes to review each record – totalling 4360 hours work.
In accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000, this letter acts as a Refusal Notice for the WHOLE of this request under Section 17(5) A public authority which, in relation to any request for information, is relying on a claim that section 12 or section 14 applies must, within the time for complying with section 1(1), give the applicant a notice stating that fact.
You may wish to refine and resubmit your request so that it reduces the time shown above to fall within the 18 hours, should you require any further advice in relation to this matter please don’t hesitate to contact the Freedom of Information Unit.
Please also be advised that should the request be refined, it does not remove the public authorities right to cite exemptions if relevant.
(This is a response under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and disclosed on 21/10/2024)