FOI 18839-25 Offences Caused by Driving too Slowly

Request to Northamptonshire Police

A driver in the UK may be charged with an offence for driving too SLOWLY, typically recorded as ‘careless driving’ or ‘dangerous driving’.

- How many careless driving/dangerous case/driving offences have been recorded by your force that also reference driving too ‘slow’ or too ‘slowly’.

- Could I have a breakdown of those figures going back five years (specifically for the years 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025 so far).

- Of any recorded cases, are you able to state the name of the road in which the offence took place.

- If possible, please state the AGE of the driver charged with the offence

- Please also provide any details about the nature of the charge (ie, fine, fixed penalty notice, etc).

Response

Unfortunately, Northamptonshire Police are unable to provide you with the information requested because it is not held in an easily retrievable format. To locate this information, we would need to search our recording systems for the following terms: -

‘Driving without due care and attention’

‘Driving without reasonable consideration’

‘Careless driving’ &

‘Dangerous driving’

By way of explanation, up until the end of August 2025, we found 3204 records for ‘Driving without due care and attention’ alone. Our analysts would need to manually review each record to establish if the offence involved driving too slowly. We estimate this would take conservatively 10 minutes per record, which would exceed the appropriate cost limit of £450.

Accordingly, please accept this Refusal Notice under s12(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (The Act).

We always strive to provide the highest level of service that we can with the finite resources at our disposal. Under our Duty to offer advice and assistance to help you revise your request as outlined in s16 of The Act, we may be able to provide data for one of the offences listed above for a three period. However, please note further exemptions may apply.