Cycling Offences

Request Number: FOI/13790

Category: Incident and Crime Statistics - Road Traffic Collision

Subject: Cycling Offences
 

Request and Answer: 

Your request for information below has now been considered. In respect of Section 1(1)(a) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) We can confirm that the Police Service of Northern Ireland does hold the information you have requested however it is estimated that the cost of complying with your request for information would exceed the “appropriate costs limit” under Section 12(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and this will be further explained below. PSNI have followed the Information Commissioner’s Office guidance ‘Requests where the cost of compliance exceeds the appropriate limit’ in relation to this request, which also provides further detail on the application of Section 12 (1) of the FOIA. This guidance is available on the ICO website at the following link:
https://ico.org.uk/media/for-organisations/documents/1199/costs_of_compliance_exceeds_appropriate_limit.pdf

Request
In 2024, how many Fixed Penalties or Prosecutions were issued by your force for
1. Cycling on a footpath or causeway by the side of any road made or set apart for the use or accommodation of foot passengers
2. Crossing a stop line when traffic lights are on red
3. Failing to stop at a stop line on a road junction
4. Cycling without appropriate lights between sunset and sunrise
5. Cycling without reflectors between sunset and sunrise
6. Cycling without legal brakes
7. Cycling while under the influence of alcohol or drugs
8. Riding a bicycle without a functioning bell
Can you also please break these figures down by individual area.

Clarification Sought
Q1-3:
There are no single offences specific to cycling on a footpath or breaching a red light/stop line on a pedal cycle. These would be dealt with under more generic offences such as ‘failing to drive/ride to the rule of the road" or ‘breach of a traffic sign" respectively, which encompass a number of offences and vehicle types. As a result, Stats do not hold the information required to respond to this request.
Q4:
Statistics Branch can provide figures for the offence of no lights on a pedal cycle, however are unable to advise if this was detected between sunset and sunrise.
Q5:
There is no reflector offence specific to pedal cycles therefore Statistics cannot provide this information.
Q6 – Q8:
Statistics can provide.
Can you advise you are happy for us to proceed this way?

Clarification Received
With regards to questions 1-3, other forces have provided me with figures relating to the offences of "Ride a pedal cycle on a footpath / causeway by the side of a road made / set apart for the use of foot passengers" and "Ride a pedal cycle on a road and fail to comply with the indication given by a
traffic sign”.
Could you please provide any figures you have relating to those?
For question 4, the total figure (irrespective of the time of day) will be fine.
For question 5, could you please advise what offence this would be classed under?
 

Answer
Section 17(5) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 requires the Police Service of Northern Ireland, when refusing to provide such information (because the cost of compliance exceeds the appropriate limit) to provide you the applicant with a notice which states that fact.

It is estimated that the cost of complying with your request for information would exceed the “appropriate costs limit” under Section 12(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Section 12 of FOIA allows a public authority to refuse to deal with a request where it estimates that it would exceed the appropriate limit to either comply with the request in its entirety or confirm or deny whether the requested information is held. The estimate must be reasonable in the circumstances of the case. The ‘appropriate limit’ is currently £600 for central government and £450 for all other public authorities including PSNI. The relevant Regulations which define the appropriate limit for section 12 purposes are The Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulation 2004 SI 2004 No 3244. These are known as the ‘Fees Regulations’ for brevity.

Regulation 4(3) of the Fees Regulations states that a public authority can take into account the costs it reasonably expects to incur in carrying out the following permitted activities in complying with the request:

(i) determining whether the information is held;
(ii) locating the information, or a document containing it;
(iii) retrieving the information, or a document containing it; and
(iv) extracting the information from a document containing it.

Under those regulations PSNI can calculate the time spent on each of these permitted activities at £25 per hour (thus if the activity(s) takes more than 18 hours PSNI will be in excess of the ‘appropriate limit’).

When a public authority is estimating whether the appropriate limit is likely to be exceeded, it can include the costs of complying with two or more requests if the conditions laid out in Regulation 5 of the Fees Regulations can be satisfied. Those conditions require the requests to be:

• made by one person, or by different persons who appear to the public authority to be acting in concert or in pursuance of a campaign;
• made for the same or similar information; and
• received by the public authority within any period of 60 consecutive working days.

Regulation 5(2) of the Fees Regulations requires that the requests which are to be aggregated relate “to any extent” to the same or similar information. This is quite a wide test but public authorities should still ensure that the requests meet this requirement.

Enquiries made in relation to your request has identified that retrieval of information to respond to your request would exceed the FOI legislative cost of 18 hours as set by the Secretary of State.

Whilst the information you seek for Requests 1, 2, 3 and 5 are held electronically by the PSNI, it is not held in a format that would allow its retrieval without manual intervention. PSNI is not saying it does not hold the data that you request, however to extract the data you have sought in your request would require a manual trawl of PSNI’s records – hence putting the request grossly over the 18 hour cost limit set out under the FOIA.

Between 1st January 2024 and 30th November 2024 there were a total of 960 detections for the offences of ‘No Reflectors’, ‘Failing to drive/ride to rule of the road’ and ‘Breach of Traffic Sign’ which encompass a number of offences and vehicle types. Of these, 787 (82%) resulted in a fixed penalty notice and 173 have resulted in a referral for prosecution. At a conservative 5 minutes per review of each record, it would take over 80 hours to retrieve the information you seek.

In accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000, this letter should be considered as a Refusal Notice, and the request has therefore been closed. 

Advice and assistance
You may wish to submit a refined request in order that the cost of complying with your request may be facilitated within the ‘appropriate limit’. In compliance with Section 16 of the Act, we have considered how your request may be refined to bring it under the appropriate limit. 

We may be able to provide a response within the appropriate limit for the following:

• How many detections were made by your force for the offence of no lights on a pedal cycle (however are unable to advise if this was detected between sunset and sunrise)?
• How many detections were made by your force for cycling without legal brakes?
• How many detections were made by your force for cycling while under the influence of alcohol or drugs?
• How many detections were made by your force for riding a bicycle without a functioning bell?

Submission of a refined request would be treated as a new request, and considered in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000, including consideration of relevant Part II exemptions.