Road traffic accidents and drink driving age statistics (FOI)

Produced by the Freedom of Information office
Authored by Government of Jersey on behalf of the States of Jersey Police and published on 07 August 2019.
Prepared internally, no external costs.

​​Request

Please may I have the statistics for the past three years of road traffic collisions (RTCs) and drunk drivers stopped in Jersey broken down as follows:

A

Total RTCs

B

How many of these RTCs were caused by 17-20 year olds?

C

How many of these RTCs were caused be 21+ year olds

D

The total number of drunk drivers stopped.

E

How many of them were aged 17-20 year olds?

F

How many of them were aged 21+ year olds?

Response

A, B and C

The ages of drivers involved in RTCs are only held in an automatically searchable format where such an RTC is formally recorded in accordance with Article 52(1) Road Traffic (Jersey) Law 1956, which reads as follows:

‘Where, owing to the presence of a vehicle on a road, an accident occurs whereby damage or injury is caused to any person, vehicle, animal or property, real or personal, the driver of the vehicle shall stop and:

(i) if damage is caused to any unattended vehicle, or to any other property belonging to a person other than a person involved in the accident,

(ii) if only one vehicle is involved in the accident and the only damage caused is to that vehicle, or

(iii) if injury is caused to any person or animal.

Driver ages for those RTCs reported to Police occurring outside the above criteria will require a manual search. Given that there were 3,911 RTCs reported to police between 2016 – 2018, and with an estimate of three minutes required to research each report, the 12 ½ hour limit would be exceeded and thus Article 16 of the Freedom of Information Law is applied. The information that can be provided within the time limit is as follows:

​Recorded (not reported) RTCs: driver / rider age	​2016	2017​	2018​
​17-20 years	​38	33​	42​
​21 years and above	​207	157​	189​
​Total	​235	190​	231​

D

The term “drunk drivers” has been taken to include the following offences:

• Article 27(1) (as amended) Road Traffic (Jersey) Law 1956 – driving or attempting to drive, or in charge of a vehicle on a road or other public place whilst unfit to drive a vehicle through drink or drugs

• Article 28(1) Road Traffic (Jersey) Law 1956 – driving or attempting to drive, or in charge of a vehicle on a road or other public place whilst over the prescribed limit

• Article 29(4) Road Traffic (Jersey) Law 1956 fails to provide a specimen of breath at the roadside when required to do so

• Article 30(2) Road Traffic (Jersey) Law 1956 fails to provide a specimen of breath at the police station when required to do so

E and F

​Drink driver / rider age	​2016	2017​	2018​
​17-20 years	​6	11​	14​
​21 years and above	​136	113​	97​
​Total	​142	124​	111​

 

Exemption applied

Article 16 A scheduled public authority may refuse to supply information if cost excessive

(1) A scheduled public authority that has been requested to supply information may refuse to supply the information if it estimates that the cost of doing so would exceed an amount determined in the manner prescribed by Regulations.