FOI 1136-2024/25 Road Traffic Collisions

Request
Q1. Please provide the total number of recorded road traffic accidents in North Yorkshire from January 2024 to February 2025. Additionally, identify which month had the highest number of incidents. 

Q2. Break down these accidents by severity, categorising them into fatal, serious, and slight injuries. 

Q3. Provide a dataset detailing the number of road traffic accidents involving pedestrians, cyclists, scooters, and motorcyclists during this period. 

Q4. What were the leading causes of road traffic accidents in the given timeframe? Please include a statistical breakdown by category, such as speeding, drink-driving, reckless driving, poor weather conditions, vehicle defects, and driver distraction (e.g., mobile phone use). 

Q5. How many of these accidents involved drivers aged under 25 years old or over 70 years old? If available, please indicate any trends or patterns related to these age groups. 

Q6. Identify the most hazardous roads and junctions based on accident frequency during this period, along with the total number of incidents recorded at each location. 

Q7. Provide a ranked list of areas with the highest number of traffic accidents, specifying the recorded figures for each. 

Extent of Searches to Locate Information
Following receipt of your request searches were conducted within North Yorkshire Police to locate relevant information. 

Decision
I am not obliged to provide you with a response to your request pursuant to Section 12(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the Act). Please note that when one part of your request falls under Section 12, we are not obliged to review the rest of the questions and the whole request is therefore exempt.

Section 12(1) applies to your request as the cost of complying with your request is above the amount to which we are legally required to respond i.e. the cost of identifying and retrieving any relevant information exceeds the ‘appropriate level’ as stated in the Freedom of Information (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004.

Due to the nature of our recording systems the information requested, if held, is not in an easily retrievable format. Our information retrieval process generally relies on a computer ran report which captures any information recorded upon the surface of a record or within specified fields. Where relevant information is held deeper in the record, or outside of a specified field, a manual assessment is required to retrieve that information.

In order to retrieve the requested information to answer Questions 3-7, it would be necessary to manually review each recorded road traffic collision in the timeframe specified would involve reviewing thousands of records, which would exceed the time limit allowed under the Act. 

Pursuant to Section 17(5) of the Freedom of Information Act this letter acts as a Refusal Notice.

Pursuant to Section 16 of the Act I am required to offer you advice and assistance with regarding to refining your request to within the ‘appropriate limit’ (time/cost limit). I may be able to provide the total number of road traffic collisions (including damage only) recorded for the timeframe requested, broken down by severity, if you wish to revise and resubmit your request, omitting Questions 3-7.  If you wish to discuss this please do not hesitate to contact me.

Please note that systems used for recording information are not generic, nor are the procedures used locally in capturing the data.  It should be noted therefore that this force’s response to your questions should not be used for comparison purposes with any other responses you may receive.