Driving Whilst using Mobile Phone

Please could you let me know how many cautions, warnings, arrests and procecutions there have been across the Cheshire Police area for driving while using a mobile phone? Ideally I'd like to know what the figures have been for each of the last five years. If the figures are available for each of the force's policing areas (e.g. Warrington South, Warrington East, Warrington West and Warrington Central) that would be very useful too.

In accordance with section 1 (1) (a) of the Act our response is provided below;

I have now considered your request and I can confirm that we hold most of the information you have requested. From our preliminary assessment, we estimate that compliance with your request would exceed the appropriate costs limit under section 12 of the Freedom of information Act 2000. This is currently £450

The reason for this is various methods employed in dealing with this type of offence. The most predominant is by way of a fixed penalty or by the issuing of a summons. Cautions and warnings are likely to be informal. Arrests are unlikely. The problem areas are the informal warnings and cautions. They would be recorded primarily in an officers pocket note book. To recover this information would require the examination of every officers note books for the period in questions, they are likely to number in the hundreds. It is clear to me that this would greatly exceed the cost limits.

This therefore is a refusal notice . The appropriate limit is defined in the Data Protection and Freedom of Information (Fees and Appropriate Limit) Regulations 2004, which is covered by statutory Instrument Number 3244 of 2004. Furthermore, Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 allows a public authority to refuse to respond to a request for information where the cost of compliance would exceed the appropriate limit as defined by the above mentioned regulations.

Can I suggest that you refine your request to the numbers of fixed penalty notices (FPN's) issued. (I am not sure they can differentiate the areas they relate to without reading each individual ticket) In addition if time/cost permits we could also look for the numbers of summons issued. There are three Administration of Justice offices in the Force area each would have to search there records for the numbers of summonses issued.

I do not think a search of custody records would achieve any result as its unlikely the a person would be arrested for such an offence but I cannot say for certainty that none exists

In summary. We can supply the numbers of FPN' s issued.

We can probably supply the numbers of summonses issued. If cost look s likely to be an issue we will confine that part to Northern area which includes Warrington.

We cannot supply cautions and warnings.  We do not recommend a search of custody records as its unlikely to yield a result.  Please let me know how you wish to proceed, if at all, with your request.