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Driving Offences

Volume 502: debated on Monday 7 December 2009

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many people in (a) Mid Bedfordshire constituency, (b) the East of England and (c) England were disqualified from driving as a result of (i) drink driving, (ii) speeding and (iii) dangerous or reckless driving in each of the last 10 years. (302925)

The number of disqualifications imposed at all courts in the Bedfordshire police force area, the East of England Government office region and England for driving after consuming alcohol or taking drugs, speed limit offences, dangerous and careless driving offences, is given in Tables 1, 2 and 3 from 1998 to 2007 (latest available).

There is no specific offence of reckless driving, thus information included in the table is for offences of dangerous and careless driving.

Court proceedings data are not available at parliamentary constituency level.

Data for 2008 are planned for publication on 28 January 2010.

Table 1: The number of disqualifications imposed at all courts in the Bedfordshire police force area, for selected motoring offences, from 1998 to 20071,2

number of offences

Offence type

1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

Dangerous driving

35

36

32

37

41

71

48

64

70

61

Driving etc. after consuming alcohol or taking drugs

993

820

756

857

899

1,013

1,016

987

1,073

994

Careless driving

17

13

22

42

34

37

28

34

47

48

Speed limit offences

158

121

126

138

117

289

238

441

355

258

Total

1,203

990

936

1,074

1,091

1,410

1,330

1,526

1,545

1,361

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. 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 those data are used. Source: Justice Statistics Analytical Services—Ministry of Justice.

Table 2: The number of disqualifications imposed at all courts in the East of England Government office region1, for selected motoring offences, from 1998 to 20072,3

number of offences

Offence type

1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

Dangerous driving

373

376

322

333

422

555

485

469

452

461

Driving etc. after consuming alcohol or taking drugs

7,732

7,553

6,933

7,391

8,038

8,406

8,860

8,544

8,968

8,482

Careless driving

149

141

162

221

256

260

253

288

279

274

Speed limit offences

1,705

1,772

1,403

1,591

1,450

1,497

1,477

1,870

1,609

1,375

Total

9,959

9,842

8,820

9,536

10,166

10,718

11,075

11,171

11,308

10,592

1 Includes: Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Norfolk and Suffolk police force areas. 2 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. 3 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 those data are used. Source: Justice Statistics Analytical Services—Ministry of Justice.

Table 3: The number of disqualifications imposed at all courts in England, for selected motoring offences, from 1998 to 20071,2

number of offences

Offence type

1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

20043

2005

2006

2007

Dangerous driving

4,570

4,269

4,225

4,116

5,071

6,220

6,177

5,256

4,914

4,675

Driving etc. after consuming alcohol or taking drugs

80,332

77,827

74,697

73,685

79,310

81,139

84,669

81,107

81,461

78,503

Careless driving

1,423

1,445

1,478

1,861

2,026

1,988

2,240

2,164

2,085

2,232

Speed limit offences

11,565

11,551

10,695

10,951

8,739

9,330

9,582

9,875

8,977

7,917

Total

97,890

95,092

91,095

90,613

95,146

98,677

102,668

98,402

97,437

93,327

1It 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. 2Every 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 those data are used. 3Figures given include revised figures for Sussex police force area. Source: Justice Statistics Analytical Services - Ministry of Justice.