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Driving Offences

Volume 458: debated on Tuesday 13 March 2007

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many people were convicted for failing to comply with (a) a stop sign and (b) traffic light signals in each of the last 10 years. (125022)

The information collected centrally does not identify separately offences of neglect of stop signs and traffic light signals.

Available information taken from the Court Proceedings database held by the Office for Criminal Justice Reform, from 1995 to 2004 (latest available) is provided in the table.

2005 data will be available later this year.

Number of convictions at all courts for the offence of failing to comply with traffic light signals/signs1, England and Wales, 1995 to 2004

Number of offences

Total

1995

24,480

1996

25,307

1997

23,563

1998

20,966

1999

18,971

2000

21,893

2001

20,028

2002

17,872

2003

17,094

2004

13,775

1 Offences under the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 and the Motor Vehicles (Speed Limits on Motorways) Regulations 1973; the Road Traffic Act 1988 and the Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions 1994.

Notes:

1. It is known that for some police force areas, the reporting of court proceedings in particular those relating to summary motoring offences, may be less than complete. Work is under way to ensure that the magistrates courts case management system currently being implemented by the Department for Constitutional Affairs reports all motoring offences to the Office for Criminal Justice Reform. This will enable more complete figures to be disseminated.

2. Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from large administrative data systems generated by the courts and police forces. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when these data are used.