Noisy And Dangerous Driving - 'On Road' Motorbikes

Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA)

Thank you for your email received today in which you make a request for
information that Northumbria Police may hold.

We are in the process of dealing with your request and expect to revert to
you shortly. A response should be provided by 29/04/09.

Yours sincerely

Jan Mcewan
Information Compliance Unit

NORTHUMBRIA POLICE PRIVACY AND CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE

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For more information about Northumbria Police please visit our website - http://www.northumbria.police.uk

Provision of information held by Northumbria Police made under the Freedom
of Information Act 2000 (the 'Act')

Thank you for your email dated 30 March 2009 in which you made a request
for access to certain information which may be held by Northumbria Police.

As you may be aware the purpose of the Act is to allow a general right of
access to information held by a Public Authority (including the Police),
subject to certain limitations and exemptions.

You asked:

1. I would like to know how many complaints, broken down per year
from 2004 to 2008 inclusive their have been about dangerous and/or noisy
motorbikes.

2. I would also like to know how many, as a separate question and
figure, have been prosecuted - caution, asbo, fine etc with regards to
noisy illegal bikes. I only request on road figures. I am interested in
Northumberland only. If there is no way of breaking down this data then
the whole Force area would be acceptable.

3. As a final query I put it to the Chief Constable, what is
Northumbria Police doing to tackle the ever increasing noisy and dangerous
bikes on the rural roads. It is clear that education is not working.

In response:

We have now had the opportunity to fully consider your request and I am
pleased to provide a response for your attention.

1-2. We are unable to supply any information asked for in this part of
your request. As there is no code for dangerous/noisy motorbikes each
sector of the Northumberland Area Command would have to be searched using
the key word 'motorcycle'. As each search can only be done for 31 days
this process would need repeating until January 2004 was reached. We have
estimated to search each sector would take approximately 400 minutes.
There are 11 sectors in the area command. The resulting information
would then require manual interrogation to see it met the criteria of your
request, whether dangerous and/or noisy motorbike and whether any
cautions, fines, ASBOs etc were given.

We have estimated that to extract this information would take over
18 hours, therefore Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act would
apply. This section does not oblige a public authority to comply with a
request for information if the authority estimated that the cost of
complying with the request would exceed the appropriate limit of 18 hours,
equating to **450.00

You should consider this to be a refusal notice under section 17
of the Act for that part of your request.

3. Northumberland Area Command does not keep separate figures for
this type of roads policing.

However, Northumberland Area Command proactively engages with the
motor cycle community through Operation Weekender which takes place every
weekend in the county. We link with our partners Northumberland County
Council, Northumberland Fire and Rescue, Royal Society for the Prevention
of Accidents and Institute of Advanced Motorists.

This operation resulted in zero motorcycle fatalities during 2008
and 7 serious injury RTCs involving motorcycles, this is an all time low.
This prevent and deter approach is successful and Northumberland Area
Command will continue with this tactic throughout 2009/10.

Other force initiatives relating to motorbikes can be found on the
Northumbria Police website. In order to aid and assist you further I have
supplied the relevant link below.

[1]http://www.northumbria.police.uk/

The information we have supplied to you is likely to contain intellectual
property rights of Northumbria Police. Your use of the information must
be strictly in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988
(as amended) or such other applicable legislation. In particular, you
must not re-use this information for any commercial purpose.

How to complain

If you are unhappy with our decision or do not consider that we have
handled your request properly and we are unable to resolve this issue
informally, you are entitled to make a formal complaint to us under our
complaints procedure which is attached.

If you are still unhappy after we have investigated your complaint and
reported to you the outcome, you may complain directly to the Information
Commissioner***s Office and request that they investigate to ascertain
whether we have dealt with your request in accordance with the Act.

Yours sincerely

Keith Harm Sgt 22
Acting Data Protection and Disclosure Advisor
Direct Dial: 01661 869389

NORTHUMBRIA POLICE PRIVACY AND CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE

The information contained in this message and any attachment(s) is
confidential and intended only for the attention of the named organisation
or individual to whom it is addressed. The message may contain
information that is covered by legal, professional or other privilege. No
mistake in transmission is intended to waive or compromise any such
privilege. This message has been sent over public networks and the sender
cannot be held responsible for its integrity.

If you are not the intended recipient be aware that any disclosure,
copying, distribution or action taken in reliance of the information
contained herein is strictly prohibited, and is contrary to the provisions
of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act, 1998 and of the Data Protection
Act, 1998.

Any views expressed are those of the sender and, unless specifically
stated, do not necessarily represent the view of Northumbria Police.

We cannot accept any liability for any loss or damage sustained as a
result of software viruses. It is your responsibility to carry out such
virus checking as is necessary.

If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender by
e-mail at once and delete the message immediately.

For more information about Northumbria Police please visit our website -
[2]http://www.northumbria.police.uk

References

Visible links
1. http://www.northumbria.police.uk/
2. http://www.northumbria.police.uk/