FOI Speeding Tickets (0840-2023/24)

Request
Could you please share with me the number of speeding tickets your force issued in 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 to date (up to the end of October) in the following speed categories: 

21-25 mph

26-30 mph

31-35 mph

36-40 mph

41-50 mph

51-60 mph

61-70 mph

71-80mph

81-90mph

91-100 mph

100+ mph

In each speed category could you please also provide the age range of offenders, the median age of offender and the proportion of offenders who are men and women. 

And in each year could you also please supply the slowest and fastest single speed for which a ticket was given.

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 and provide a breakdown by age and gender it would be necessary to manually read each individual speeding offence.  This would involve reading through thousands of offences over a 6-year period, 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). However, due to the information provided above I am unable to suggest how you may refine your request and still receive the information within the cost threshold.

Although in order to assist, you may be interested to know that there is already information available on the North Yorkshire Police website in relation to speeding offences, although the data is not broken down into speed ranges. The information dates back to 2013. 

https://www.northyorkshire.police.uk/police-forces/north-yorkshire-police/areas/stats-and-data/stats-and-data/safety-camera-deployment/

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