Road traffic collisions 414/2025

FOI Reference: 414/25

Request:

1. In the past year, how many car accidents took place? (Financial year 2024/25)

1a. Can this be broken down by accident causes such as speeding, drink-driving, icy roads etc? 

1b. Can this be broken down by town (accidents in the towns that the force covers)?

2. What is the number of pedestrian casualties in reported road collisions in the past year? (Financial year 2024/25) 

2a. Could these casualties be broken down into fatalities, serious injuries and minor injuries?

2b. Can this be broken down by town (accidents in the towns that the force covers)?

3. What is the number of pedal cyclist casualties in reported road collisions in the past year? (Financial year 2024/25)

3a. Could these casualties be broken down into fatalities, serious injuries and minor injuries?

3b. Can this be broken down by town (accidents in the towns that the force covers)?

4. In the past year, how many people were arrested following a traffic collision/accident and how many people were subsequently charged? (Financial year 2024/25)

Clarification: Figures for cars only and to include information for both damage and injury.

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 1,028 hours) to comply with this part of 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 questions 1 – 3 of your request is not held in an easily retrievable format. We are currently unable to carry out a keyword search on the police system that records incidents to narrow down the search for the cause of the road traffic collision (RTC) or to further break down the RTC by town.

It has been established that there are a total of 6,168 records that would require individual interrogation and it has been estimated that it would take a minimum of 10 minutes to research each individual record. The relevant time estimate is detailed below:

01/04/2024 – 31/03/2025 – 6,168 RTC incident records x 10 minutes per record = 1,028 hours.

Total time estimate to complete question 1 – 3 of your request = 1,028 hours

Please note: Injury RTC data up to December 2024 can be found on the Welsh Government website: 

https://www.gov.wales/police-recorded-road-collisions-interactive-dashboard

Data from January 2025 onwards is still being collated and checked prior to release.  This information is due to be released at the end of April/early May.

Furthermore, in regards to question 4, we are only able to search for the offence/s arrested for and not the circumstances of the arrest.  Therefore, we would be taking an educated guess by searching for certain offences such as causing death by dangerous driving, death by inconsiderate driving, dangerous driving, etc. Those are the offences where a collision has most likely occurred.  However, this does not factor in offences such as drink or drug drive offences whereby the offender may have been involved in a collision and then been subject to a roadside breath test as a result.

To provide an accurate answer, we would need to search under an array of possible offences where a collision may have occurred and then manually trawl through each custody record to read the circumstances of the arrest, ascertain if a collision occurred as part of the offence and what the outcome of the investigation was.  It is estimated that a manual trawl for an entire financial year would likely take in excess of 48 hours.

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.                                              

(This is a response under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and disclosed on 28/04/2025)