Road traffic offence statistics: FOI release

Information requested

1. For each year (2020–2025):
a. The total number of people convicted of road traffic offences.
b. A breakdown by offence type — for all road traffic offences recorded, including, but not limited to:

- Speeding offences
- Driving without insurance
- Driving without a licence
- Drink and drug driving
- Dangerous driving
- Careless driving
- Other moving and non-moving traffic offences

2. For each offence type (as listed above and any others recorded):
a. The number of convictions per year.
b. The number of offences that resulted in an accident (including minor/major, injury, or fatal collisions), if recorded.

3. Demographic breakdowns (where available):
a. Gender (male / female / other if available) for convicted offenders.
b. Age groups (e.g. under 17, 17–25, 26–40, 41–65, 66+) of convicted offenders.

4. If available, any cross-tabulated data combining offence types with accident outcomes, gender, and age.

Response

I attach a copy of some of the information you requested.

Some of the information you have requested is available from Table 4b of the Main tables of Criminal Proceedings in Scotland 2023-24. Under section 25(1) of FOISA, we do not have to give you information which is already reasonably accessible to you. If, however, you do not have internet access to obtain this information from the website(s) listed, then please contact me again and I will send you a paper copy.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have some of the information you have requested. The reasons why we don't have the information are explained below.

This is a formal notice under Section 17(1)of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have part of the information you have requested.

Data on people prosecuted and convicted in Scottish courts are published as Criminal Proceedings in Scotland. Data are published by financial year and the most recently available data are for 2023-24. This does not include data on whether or not a particular road traffic offence caused an accident. We therefore are unable to provide information by calendar year, data more recent than 31 March 2024 or any information on accidents.

Transport Scotland publish separate statistics on reported road casualties in Scotland that you may be interested in. The most recent publication is for 2024 and is available as Reported Road Casualties Scotland 2024. This contains analysis of road safety factors. These are factors that police officers attending the scene of a collision are able to select if they believe they contributed to the collision. These factors include "Affected by drugs", "Affected by alcohol", and "Driver/rider being aggressive, dangerous, or reckless". However, they do not include information on criminal offending and cannot be directly linked to the Criminal Proceedings in Scotland statistics.

The data we are able to provide is included in the attached spreadsheet. Some important caveats around this data are:

• Provided in the attached tables are the crimes recorded under each category of the Road traffic offences group.
• Table 4b of the bulletin (mentioned above) also covers convictions for Causing death by driving dangerously, which fall within the Non-sexual crimes of violence group which you may be interested in.
• For clarity, the crime of Accident offences under the Other road traffic offences category relates to Section 170 of the Road Traffic Act 1988.
• Data from 2020-21 onwards were affected by the pandemic, including: court closures, reduced court capacities due to physical distancing measures, delays to cases where key participants were forced to self-isolate following positive COVID-19 tests and re-prioritisation of cases to deal with the resulting backlogs. Data from this period should not be considered indicative of long term trends.
• Age is age at sentencing and may be older than a person's age at the time of any offence(s) due to the time it takes for a case to pass through the justice system.
• Sex is as recorded on the Criminal History System from which this data is derived.

In specific response to each section of your request:

1a. Please see Table 4b of Criminal Proceedings in Scotland, mentioned above.

1b. Please see Table 1 of the attached spreadsheet.

2a. Please see Table 1 of the attached spreadsheet.

2b. We do not hold this data.

3a. See Table 2 of the attached spreadsheet.

3b. See Table 2 of the attached spreadsheet.

4. Again, we do not hold data on whether a road traffic offence caused an accident, but provide a breakdown by sex, age and offence type in Table 2 of the attached spreadsheet.

About FOI

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 202600501065 - Information released - Annex

File type

Excel document

File size

19.4 kB