RTCs and driving offences 590/2025

FOI Reference: 590/2025

Request:

1. The number of reported road traffic accidents, broken down by year, from 2020 to 2025.
2. The number of reported road rage or aggressive driving incidents from 2020 to 2025.
3. The number of recorded driving offences from 2020 to 2025, specifically:

• • Speeding
  • Use of a mobile phone while driving
  • Dangerous driving
  • Driving without insurance
  • Careless or Inconsiderate Driving
  • Driving under the influence (alcohol or drugs)
  • Driving whilst disqualified 
  • Causing Death or Injury by Dangerous Driving
  • Any other driving offences that there are

Please break down the data by year and local authority or city area if possible.

Clarification:

1. When you state “reported” are you referring to 101/999 calls received?

A) Just on your system, not calls to 999/101.

2. Do you wish to know the total number of individuals stopped by an officer and then subsequently issued with a conditional offer of £100 and 3 points?

A) Yes please

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.

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.

I can confirm that Dyfed-Powys Police does hold the information you have requested. However we are withholding the whole of the requested information since we consider that the Section 12(1) exemption the Cost of Compliance exceeds the Appropriate Limit applies to it.

Section 12 (1) – The cost of compliance exceeds the Appropriate Limit

Section 12(1) states: “…Section 1 (1) does not oblige a public authority to comply with a request for information if the authority estimates that the cost of complying with the request would exceed the appropriate limit.”

The cost of providing you with the information requested in respect 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 32,346.48  hours) to comply with this part of your request. The regulations can be located at https://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 clarified request is not held in an easily retrievable format and we are unable to complete keyword searches on the relevant systems due to law enforcement considerations. We have also been informed that there is no specific category on the relevant systems to denote road rage or aggressive driving incidents and that these incidents could be recorded under 4 different incident category types. Therefore, to accurately obtain the information relative to your clarified request for the time frame stipulated would involve Dyfed Powys Police accessing and reviewing all of the 4 incident category types referred to above to identify the number of incidents that relate to road rage and/or aggressive driving. It has been established that there are a total of 190,134 incidents that cover the period of your request.  It has also been established that it would take a minimum of 10 minutes to review and obtain the information for a single incident in respect of your clarified request (as outlined above).  The process outlined results in the below time estimate.

2020 = 30,047 incidents at 10 mins per incident = 5,007.83 hours

2021 = 36,805 incidents at 10 mins per incident = 6,134.17 hours

2022 = 35,860 incidents at 10 mins per incident = 5,976.67 hours

2023 = 35,077 incidents at 10 mins per incident = 5,846.17 hours

2024 = 33,186 incidents at 10 mins per incident = 5,531.00 hours

2025* = 19,159 incidents at 10 mins per incident = 3,193.17 hours

*up to 31/06/25

Time estimate to complete task = 31,689.01 hours

In addition to the above, question 3 of your request would also exceed the 18 hour time limit equating to 657.47 hours as each and every conditional offer issued for the offences listed other than; Driving under the influence (alcohol or drugs), Driving whilst disqualified, Causing Death or Injury by Dangerous Driving for the time frame requested would need to be reviewed to identify the location of the offence.  The total number of conditional offers issued and breakdown of the traffic offence (other than the three offences listed above) can be provided within the 18 hour time limit, however, it is likely that this information is not wholly accurate.

Please note: For the offences of Driving under the influence (alcohol or drugs), Driving whilst disqualified, Causing Death or Injury by Dangerous Driving we are unable to confirm at this moment in time whether information can be retrieved within 18 hours as this request has already exceeded the 18 hour time limit and this part of the request has not been progressed any further.

Although excess cost removes the forces obligations under the Freedom of Information Act to provide any further information, as a gesture of goodwill, I have provided information, relative to questions 1 of your request which has been easily retrievable and outlined below. 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.

In accordance therefore 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.

Question 1:

Please note: The below figures relate to instances in which Dyfed Powys police has been contacted and a road traffic collision reported.

In 2020 there were 3208 RTC incidents recorded

In 2021 there were 5938 RTC incidents recorded

In 2022 there were 6311 RTC incidents recorded

In 2023 there were 6357 RTC incidents recorded

In 2024 there were 6454 RTC incidents recorded

In 2025 (to end of June) there were 3209 RTC incidents recorded

(This is a response under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and disclosed on 23/07/2025)