Vehicle offences statistics 485/2023

FOI Reference: 485/2023 

Request:

Could we please have information and statistics on:

Vehicles without insurance

1. Total number of arrests for not having valid insurance in 2022

2. Total number of convictions for not having valid insurance in 2022

3. Total number of cars impounded for being driven without valid insurance in 2022

4. All of the above for 2021 (so we can see if there has been a rise or fall in numbers)

Road Rage

5. Road rage incidents reported in 2022 and 2021

Car Theft

6. Car theft incidents reported in 2022 and 2021, including information on car type/model

Clarification:

Road rage “incidents” or “crimes”?

Road rage incidents please, thank you.

If it is possible to have stats for both incident AND crimes though, that would be even better.

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 12,558.68 hours) to comply with your request. The regulations can be located @

www.legislation.hmso.gov.uk/si/si2004/20043244.htm

Question 5:

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 there is no specific category to record road rage incidents and crimes and this could be recorded under various crime/incident categories. Therefore an individual interrogation of all incidents and crimes recorded within the most relevant categories would be required in order to establish whether there are any relevant records held. The relevant time estimates are detailed below:

Crimes –

2021: 40,433 crimes x 7 minutes per record = 4,717.18 hours

2022: 45,042 crimes x 7 mines per record = 5,254.9 hours

Incidents –

2021: 8,242 incident records x 10 minutes per record = 1,373.67 hours

2022: 7,048 incident records x 10 minutes per record = 1,174.67 hours

Question 6:

Crimes -

In order to establish the car type/model for all car thefts in 2021 and 2022, a manual review of these records would have to be conducted as car type/model is not recorded as a searchable category. The relevant time estimate is detailed below:

2021: 176 car theft crimes x 7 minutes per record = 20.53 hours

2022: 152 car theft crimes x 7 minutes per record = 17.73 hours

Incidents –

There is no specific incident category for ‘car thefts’ and this would be categories under ‘theft’ therefore all incidents recorded within the theft category would require an individual interrogation in order to establish whether any relate to a car theft incident. The relevant time estimate is detailed below:

2021: 4,550 theft incidents x 10 minutes per record = 758.33 hours

2022: 5,271 theft incidents x 10 minutes per record = 878.5 hours

Therefore total time estimate to complete whole request = 12,558.68 hours.

Question 2, 3 & 4 (4 in relation to convictions and cars impounded only):

We are currently unable to confirm whether or not the information requested in questions 2, 3 and 4 of the request can be retrieved within appropriate time limit, i.e.18 hours. It was identified that the time limit would be exceed prior to these questions being answered therefore no further work was undertaken on the request.

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 me.

Please also be advised that should the request be refined, it does not remove the Force’s right to cite exemptions if relevant.

Although excess cost removed the force’s obligations under the Freedom of Information Act, as a gesture of goodwill, I have supplied information, relative to your request, retrieved or available before it was realised that the fees limit would be exceeded. I trust this is helpful, but it does not affect our legal right to rely on the fees regulations for the remainder of your request.

Question 1 & 4 (4 in relation to arrests only):

I can confirm that there is no information held by Dyfed Powys Police due to the fact driving without valid insurance is a non-notifiable offence and would not constitute an arrest, therefore zero (0) arrests have been made for not having valid insurance in 2021 and 2022.

Question 6 (crimes only):

I can confirm that Dyfed-Powys Police does hold part of the information requested, as outlined below.

Total number of car thefts recorded
2021	176
2022	152

(This is a response under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and disclosed on 19/01/2024)