FOI 0894-2025/26- RTC's caused by gambling-related activity

Request:

Q1. Does your force consider gambling-related activity as a potential contributory factor during the investigation of road traffic offences or accidents? (For example, as part of assessments relating to distraction, impairment, or driver behaviour.)

Q2. Does your force collect or record any information from mobile phones that indicates whether an individual was gambling at the time of an incident or collision? This includes, but is not limited to, gambling app usage, online gambling activity, or relevant notifications.

If so, please provide any recorded data, totals, or case references (anonymised).

Q3. Has your force ever identified or recorded evidence that an individual involved in a road traffic offence or accident had been gambling for prolonged periods prior to the incident?

 If so, please provide any recorded data, totals, or case references (anonymised).

Q4. If your force does not consider or record this information, please confirm whether:

a) this has never been assessed,

b) this is considered outside the investigative scope, or

c) limitations in digital extraction, policy, or data systems prevent such recording.

We are not requesting any personal identifiers or information that could risk individual privacy.

Aggregated, anonymised, or descriptive information will be fully sufficient for our research purposes.

Response:

Extent and Result of Searches to Locate Information

To locate the information relevant to your request searches were conducted within North Yorkshire Police.

I can confirm that the information you have requested is held by North Yorkshire Police. 

Decision

I have today decided to disclose the following information to you.

Q1 – Q4. No information held specific to gambling.

Mobile phone use can be a factor in any collision investigation, if we investigate a serious or fatal road traffic collision and have cause to seize and download phone data, we would consider the phones use. This might be at the time, immediately prior, or during the journey.

It would be no different to any other usage or App. We may, if deemed necessary, look at the intricacies of an App and how involved a user may have to be to utilise it. This may form part of how distracted a driver was.

Please note that systems used for recording information are not generic, nor are the procedures used locally in capturing the data.  It should be noted therefore that this force’s response to your questions should not be used for comparison purposes with any other responses you may receive.