Crimes mentioning E Bikes 744/2023
FOI Reference: 744/2023
Request:
I am writing to you under the freedom of information act 2000 to request the following.
- How many crimes have been reported in the last four calendar years (2020,2021,2022,2023 so far) have mentioned "e-bikes" or "electric bikes"? Please break this down by year.
- How many accidents that the police have been called to in the last four calendar years (2020,2021,2022,2023 so far) have involved "e-bikes" or "electric bikes"? Please break this down by year and provide as much detail as possible about the nature of the incident
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 question 2 of 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 question 2 of 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 2,627.50 hours) to comply with your request. The regulations can be located @ www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2004/3244
The Freedom of Information department has been advised that the information in respect of question 2 of your request is not held in an easily retrievable format as there is no specific category on the relevant system to denote ‘e-bikes’ or ‘electric bikes’ in relation to road traffic collision. In addition to this, we are unable to complete keyword searches on the relevant system for law enforcement purposes. Therefore, in order to establish what information, if any, is held in relation to question 2 of the request would require the individual interrogation of all incidents under the category of ‘road traffic collision’ over the time frame specified to identify if the incident/road traffic collision involved an e-bike or electronic bike. It has been established that for the period as specified within the request (i.e. 2020 – 2023) there are a total 15,765 incidents under the category of road traffic collision that would require researching. It has been estimated that it would take a minimum of 10 minutes to research a road traffic collision incident for relevance to question 2 of your request as outlined above, resulting in the following broken down time estimate.
2020 = 4,912 RTC incidents at 10 minutes per incident = 818.67 hours
2021 = 2,693 RTC incidents at 10 minutes per incident = 448.83 hours
2022 = 3,006 RTC incidents at 10 minutes per incident = 501.00 hours
2023 = 5,154 RTC incidents at 10 minutes per incident = 859.00 hours
Total 2,627.50 hours to complete task
Please note: At this point in time we are unable to confirm if question 1 is retrievable within the 18 hour time limit as this would depend on the number of keyword search hits for e-bike and electronic bike. Each corresponding crime record resulting from a keyword search hit would then need to be reviewed to make sure that it relates to an e-bike and/or electronic bike. As the request already greatly exceeds the 18 hour time limit, the above process has not been undertaken.
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, however with due regard to the time estimate provided above it is unlikely that refining your request will fall under the 18 hours as the same method and format will have to be undertaken. 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 Force’s right to cite exemptions if relevant.
(This is a response under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and disclosed on 09/04/24)