Transport Scotland - Road collision data where cigarettes and mobile phone use were recorded as a contributory factor: FOI release

Information requested

Data relating to road collisions where smoking or handling cigarettes was recorded as a contributory factor.

Specifically, I request:

1. The number of reported road collisions in which smoking or handling cigarettes was listed as a contributory factor.

2. An indication as to whether the road collisions caused by smoking or handling cigarettes goes up over the festive period (December) with a full date breakdown of date incidents.

3. The number of resulting injuries and fatalities attributed to these collisions.

4. The figures for each of the last five calendar years.

5. The number of reported road collisions in which mobile phone use was listed as the contributory factor.

Please include cases where smoking was recorded directly or categorised within “distraction in vehicle” where smoking/cigarette handling is identifiable, if separately recorded.

I would prefer the data in an electronic spreadsheet format.

Response

The records we hold relate to collisions where someone is injured or killed, and which become known to Police Scotland. Therefore, we do not hold records relating to damage-only collisions. Data on collisions which cause injury and take place on the road network, including adjacent pavements and cycle lanes, is collected by Police Scotland as part of the GB-wide dataset known as STATS19. Within STATS19, Police Scotland can select up to six factors per that they believe may have contributed to each collision. These factors were previously known as ‘contributory factors’, but since November 2023 contributory factors have been gradually being replaced with a reduced, revised set of factors known as ‘road safety factors’.

There is no contributory factor or road safety factor that records specifically whether smoking or handling cigarettes contributed to a collision. We also do not hold sufficient detail to enable us to identify instances whether this behaviour might have been recorded as a ‘distraction in vehicle’ or similar. We therefore do not hold the information requested in the first four points of your request.

Regarding point 5, a table showing the number of cases where mobile phone use was thought to be a factor in injury road collisions is included in the attached file. This includes collisions where either the ‘using mobile device’ road safety factor or the ‘driver using mobile phone’ contributory factor was recorded for the last five full calendar years.

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The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at https://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.

FOI 202500495083 - Information released - Annex

File type

Excel document

File size

12.2 kB