Electronic Scooter Incidents/Seizures/Offences

KEYWORDS

Electronic, Scooter, E-Scooters, Offences, Incidents, Seizures, Public Roads, Cycle Lanes, Pavements, Cautioned, Prosecution, Stopped, Public Highway, Licence, Insurance

PUBLICATION NUMBER

PUB 1098

FOI REFERENCE NUMBERS

14859 and 14865

FOI REFERENCE NUMBER

14859

REQUEST TITLE

Electronic Scooter Offences

DATE RANGE

N/A

INFORMATION REQUESTED

1: Does your police force record offences relating to the use of e-scooters on public roads, cycle lanes or pavements?

2: If yes, how many people were cautioned or stopped due to an e-scooter related offence between 01 October 2019 and 30 September 2020?

3: If yes, how many of these resulted in a prosecution?

DISCLOSURE WITH EXEMPTIONS

Refusal – Sections 12(1) and 17(1)

INFORMATION CORRECT AS AT

26.10.20

DATE OF DISCLOSURE

26.10.20

RELATED DOCUMENTS

E-Scooter Injury Statistics 2019 to 2022

Stops, Seizures and Prosecutions for Riding E-Scooters 2019 to 2022

Electric Scooter Seizures 2018-2022

Criminal offences where suspect Is riding an e-scooter

FOI 14859 RESPONSE

Having completed enquiries within Essex Police in respect of Section 1(1)(a), Essex Police does hold information relating to your request, however, the obligation of Section 1(1)(b) cannot be met as Essex Police does not hold all the information requested in a format that allows it to be retrieved within the time and cost limits of FOI.

When responding to a request for information under the terms of the FOIA, a public authority is not obliged to provide information if the authority estimates that the cost of the retrieval of the information requested would be in excess of £450 (equivalent to 18 hours work).  The costs criteria relates to a request in its entirety, which means that if we cannot retrieve all of the information requested within the costs limit, we are not obliged to retrieve any of the information requested.

Section 12(1) of the FOIA states that a public authority is not obliged 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 following explanation outlines the difficulty Essex Police has in answering your request:

Essex Police are unable to accurately extract the level of detail in relation to your request for the requested period from our current systems.  Essex Police systems are designed primarily for the management of individual cases and not primarily for the production of statistical information for FOI responses.  There is no specific code for Electric Scooters and we cannot differentiate between a motor vehicle or scooter for offences.  This request would entail manually extracting the requested data and then reviewing each case, one by one to establish if it meets the criteria. To establish if information is held would, therefore, exceed the time and cost limits under the FOIA and would qualify as the creation of data as the results cannot be processed by means of purely sorting or filtering data sources or running a database query tool. There is no requirement under the act to create data purely to answer FOI requests.

Consequently, and to this extent, Essex Police are exempt from the duty to provide information you have requested under the provisions of Section 12(1) of the FOIA.  Therefore, and in accordance with Section 17(1) of the FOIA, this communication must act as a refusal notice to provide all of the information that could be interpreted as being captured by this part of your request. 

FOI REFERENCE NUMBER

14865

REQUEST TITLE

Electronic Scooter Incidents/Seizures

DATE RANGE

01.01.20 to 01.10.20

INFORMATION REQUESTED

Under the FOI Act 2000, can you please tell me:

How many incidents have there been of people caught riding an electric scooter on the public highway without an appropriate licence and/or without insurance by the force in 2020?

And can you then provide a breakdown showing the outcome of each incident.

For example....

Total incidents - 36

Caution - 12

Fixed penalty notice - 12

Charged with offence - 12

How many electric scooters have been seized by the force in 2020?

DISCLOSURE WITH EXEMPTIONS

Refusal – Sections 12(1) and 17(1)

INFORMATION CORRECT AS AT

01.10.20

DATE OF DISCLOSURE

26.10.20

RELATED DOCUMENTS 

N/A

FOI 14865 RESPONSE

Having completed enquiries within Essex Police in respect of Section 1(1)(a), Essex Police does hold information relating to your request, however, the obligation of Section 1(1)(b) cannot be met as Essex Police does not hold all the information requested in a format that allows it to be retrieved within the time and cost limits of FOI.

When responding to a request for information under the terms of the FOIA, a public authority is not obliged to provide information if the authority estimates that the cost of the retrieval of the information requested would be in excess of £450 (equivalent to 18 hours work).  The costs criteria relates to a request in its entirety, which means that if we cannot retrieve all of the information requested within the costs limit, we are not obliged to retrieve any of the information requested.

Section 12(1) of the FOIA states that a public authority is not obliged 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 following explanation outlines the difficulty Essex Police has in answering your request:

Essex Police are unable to accurately extract the level of detail in relation to your request for the requested period from our current systems.  Essex Police systems are designed primarily for the management of individual cases and not primarily for the production of statistical information for FOI responses.  There is no specific code for Electric Scooters and we cannot differentiate between a motor vehicle or scooter for offences.  This request would entail manually extracting the requested data and then reviewing each case, one by one to establish if it meets the criteria. To establish if information is held would, therefore, exceed the time and cost limits under the FOIA and would qualify as the creation of data as the results cannot be processed by means of purely sorting or filtering data sources or running a database query tool. There is no requirement under the act to create data purely to answer FOI requests.

Consequently, and to this extent, Essex Police are exempt from the duty to provide information you have requested under the provisions of Section 12(1) of the FOIA.  Therefore, and in accordance with Section 17(1) of the FOIA, this communication must act as a refusal notice to provide all of the information that could be interpreted as being captured by this part of your request.

Having said that, and in an effort to assist, although excess cost removes the force’s obligations under the FOIA, Essex Police can confirm that 10 electric scooters have been seized in 2020.