June 2023
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Key points
- Northamptonshire Police publishes much data on its Operation Snap submissions.
- It shows which road user modes are submitting, the outcomes, reasons for No Further Action (NFA) as well as which offence was detected.
- Data is updated on a monthly basis.
- Action Vision Zero would like to see other police services to be inspired by this effort and also commit to increased transparency.
Northamptonshire Police and Operation Snap
This blog highlights one recent month (April 2023) of online submissions in Northamptonshire. With 161 submissions, this equates to seven per work day.
It is good to see the data presented by which road user mode submitted. As seen in Table 1, vehicle drivers account for 60% with cyclists next at 29%. No other mode has more than 4% (pedestrians).
| Table 1: Northamptonshire Police, Operation Snap submissions, April 2023 | ||||||
| Authorised | NFA | Processed | Total | % Total | ||
| Cyclist | 11 | 36 | 47 | 29% | ||
| Horse Rider | 3 | 1 | 4 | 2% | ||
| Motorcyclist | 1 | 1 | 1% | |||
| Other | 5 | 5 | 3% | |||
| Pedestrian | 3 | 3 | 6 | 4% | ||
| Vehicle Driver | 1 | 58 | 38 | 97 | 60% | |
| Vehicle Passenger | 1 | 1 | 1% | |||
| Total | 1 | 81 | 79 | 161 | 100% | |
| % Total | 1% | 50% | 49% | 100% | ||
No Further Action (NFA)
Half of all submissions result in NFA. As shown in Table 2, this is mainly due to insufficient evidence of an offence. Only 2 were reported as being out of time to process.
Table 2: Northamptonshire Police, Operation Snap NFA reasons, April 2023
| Insufficient evidence to proceed | No supporting footage uploaded | Not in the public interest | Out of time to process | Passed to other internal dept. | Submitted to incorrect force | |
| Cyclist | 9 | 1 | 1 | |||
| Horse Rider | 3 | |||||
| Motorcyclist | 1 | |||||
| Other | 4 | 1 | ||||
| Pedestrian | 2 | 1 | ||||
| Vehicle Driver | 39 | 6 | 6 | 2 | 1 | 3 |
| Vehicle Passenger | ||||||
| Total | 58 | 8 | 7 | 2 | 1 | 4 |
As seen below, very few reports end up in court. And whilst cyclists submitted fewer reports, they had similar number of positive outcomes as did vehicle drivers.
Table 3: Northamptonshire Police, Operation Snap positive outcomes, April 2023
| Court | Course | Points | Letter | Total | % Total | |
| Cyclist | 1 | 29 | 3 | 3 | 36 | 46% |
| Horse Rider | 1 | 1 | 1% | |||
| Motorcyclist | ||||||
| Other | ||||||
| Pedestrian | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 4% | |
| Vehicle Driver | 29 | 5 | 4 | 38 | 48% | |
| Vehicle Passenger | 1 | 1 | 1% | |||
| Total | 1 | 60 | 9 | 9 | 79 | 100% |
| % Total | 1% | 76% | 11% | 11% | 10% |
Key offences detected
Table 4 shows the top three offences detected, and by which road user mode submitted them. Most of the offences reported by cyclists were Driving without Reasonable Consideration to other road users. This is assumed to be close passes. By comparison, vehicle drivers are mainly reporting Driving without due care and attention.
Table 4: Northamptonshire Police, Operation Snap Key offences detected, April 2023
| Drive without reasonable consideration to other road uses | Drive without due care and attention | Fail to comply with red traffic signal | |
| Cyclist | 28 | 5 | |
| Horse Rider | |||
| Pedestrian | |||
| Vehicle Driver | 3 | 13 | 9 |
| Vehicle Passenger | 1 | ||
| Total | 32 | 18 | 9 |
| % Total | 41% | 23% | 11% |
Conclusion
Northamptonshire Police are believed to publish more data on online reports than any other police service. It is a shame it is not better publicised but the statistics are regularly updated and date back to January 2021.
AVZ hopes that this will inspire other police services and local campaigners as it demonstrates what is possible and is already being done.