Road users fined for noise limits/using illegal modified exhausts from January 2019 to June 2023

Freedom of information request reference no: 01.FOI.23.030354

I note you seek access to the following information:

Please could you provide me with the following information, 

1) How many road users have been fined for breaking the legal noise limits or for using illegal modified exhausts in the last five years.

2) How many road users have been stopped and investigated for breaking the legal noise limits or for using illegal modified exhausts in the last five years.

Decision

I have today decided to disclose some of the requested information. Some data has been withheld as it is exempt from disclosure and therefore this response serves as a Refusal Notice under Section 17 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the Act) by virtue of the following exemptions:

Section 12(1) - cost of complying with the request would exceed the appropriate limit

Reason for decision

When a request for information is made under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the Act), a public authority must inform you, when permitted, whether the information requested is held. It must then communicate that information to you. If a public authority decides that it cannot comply with all or part of a request, it must cite the appropriate section or exemption of the Act and provide you with an explanation.

Please also note that when one part of a request is refused because the cost of completing that part of the request would exceed the appropriate limit, this results in the refusal of the request in its entirety. This approach is in line with the guidance of the Information Commissioner (the Freedom of Information ombudsman).

The MPS is unable to identify within 18 hours, the answers to your question. To answer question 2 would exceed the cost threshold. When a road user is stopped and investigated for breaking the legal noise limits or for using illegal modified exhausts this could potentially be recorded on the MPS electronic systems such as the Crime Reporting Information Systems or within the officers notebook. Being stopped and investigated could involve any preliminary steps to determine if the legal noise limits has been exceeded or there is use of illegal modified exhausts such as physically examining the vehicle to listening to the exhausts noise. Where it is not deemed to break of the legal noise limit or there is no use of illegal modified exhausts this would be entered into the officers notebook. This could be considered an investigation. This information could potentially held across the MPS and would entail engaging with all officers to ask over the past 5 year period if they have made any notes in their notebook of such an investigation. Even to narrow this down to one unit such as the Road Traffic Policing Command would exceed the cost threshold.

Whilst it is not possible to provide a precise estimate of the time required to collate all of the requested information, it is clear that the extent of the research required to answer your request is vast. It would accordingly take a single member of staff a period of time far in excess of the 18 hour research/cost threshold of the Act to collate all of the information relevant to your request for information. For this reason, I have refused your request for information.

We therefore estimate that the cost of complying with this request would exceed the appropriate limit. The appropriate limit has been specified in regulations and for agencies outside central Government; this is set at £450.00. This represents the estimated cost of one person spending 18 hours [at a rate of £25 per hour] in determining whether the MPS holds the information, and locating, retrieving and extracting the information.

Disclosure

Please refer to the attached spreadsheet for Q1 of your request.