PUBLISHED PROJECT REPORT PPR764 A review of retesting and post-court educational interventions for serious driving offenders L Smith, E Delmonte, R Jenkins, K Fernandez- Medina, J Scoons, L Durrell & K McRae-McKee Report details Report prepared for: Department for Transport Project/customer reference: RM2753 SB235 Copyright: © Transport Research Laboratory Report date: 21/03/2017 Report status/version: Quality approval: Su Buttress Shaun Helman (Project Manager) (Technical Reviewer) Disclaimer This report has been produced by the Transport Research Laboratory under a contract with Department for Transport. Any views expressed in this report are not necessarily those of Department for Transport. The information contained herein is the property of TRL Limited and does not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the customer for whom this report was prepared. Whilst every effort has been made to ensure that the matter presented in this report is relevant, accurate and up-to-date, TRL Limited cannot accept any liability for any error or omission, or reliance on part or all of the content in another context. When purchased in hard copy, this publication is printed on paper that is FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) and TCF (Totally Chlorine Free) registered. PPR764 Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank Claire Corbett for her assistance with the consultation with members of the judiciary, members of the judiciary for their input to the qualitative study and hypothetical case studies and MoJ, DVLA and DVSA staff for collating the data required. A review of serious driving offenders Contents Executive summary 1 1 Background 9 1.1 Research and objectives 9 1.2 The extended driving test 9 1.3 Project overview 11 1.4 This report 12 2 Process to regain licence following offence 13 2.1 Offences and charging 14 2.2 Courts 14 2.2.1 Magistrates’ courts 14 2.2.2 The Crown Court 15 2.3 Disqualification and test pass required 15 2.4 Regaining licence 16 2.5 Previous research 16 3 Data sources and methods 18 3.1 DVLA and DVSA data 18 3.1.1 Removal of offences 18 3.1.2 Data collated for this project 21 3.2 DVLA archive 24 3.3 Ministry of Justice data 24 3.4 Members of the Judiciary 25 3.4.1 Qualitative consultation with members of the judiciary about the EDT 25 3.4.2 Hypothetical case studies 26 4 Defendants 30 Summary 32 5 Offences and offenders 33 5.1 Number of offences, offenders and trends 33 5.1.1 MoJ data 33 5.1.2 DVLA summary data 35 5.1.3 DVLA and DVSA data 36 5.1.4 DVLA archive 41 A review of serious driving offenders 5.2 Characteristics of offences 43 5.2.1 DVLA data 43 5.2.2 DVLA archive 44 5.3 Geographical variation 45 5.3.1 DVLA data 45 5.4 Variation between courts 47 Summary 51 6 Characteristics of offenders 52 6.1 Age and gender 52 6.1.1 MoJ data 52 6.1.2 DVLA data 53 6.2 Ethnicity 57 6.3 Socio-economic background and social grade 58 6.4 Previous driving offences of offenders 60 Summary 64 7 Penalties 65 7.1 Data analysis findings 65 7.1.1 Disqualifications and driving test requirements 65 7.1.2 Other penalties 70 7.2 Consultation and hypothetical case study findings 72 7.2.1 Penalties and points 72 7.2.2 Ancillary orders 74 7.2.3 Summary of sentencing for the five case studies 77 7.3 Understanding the decision-making process when ordering an EDT 81 7.3.1 Effect of offender characteristics on sentencing decision 81 7.3.2 Awareness of EDT and its discretionary use 82 7.3.3 Perceived barriers to ordering an EDT 84 Summary 87 8 Retesting 88 8.1 EDT and standard test 88 8.1.1 Practical test pass rates and number of attempts 88 8.1.2 Pass rates and times taken by geography and social grade 93 8.1.3 EDT category type 96 A review of serious driving offenders 8.1.4 Practical test pass rates by Offence 96 8.1.5 What are the reasons for failing? 97 8.1.6 Standard test 99 8.2 Theory test 100 8.2.1 Theory test pass rates and number of attempts 101 8.2.2 Theory test pass rates by age, gender and offence 102 8.2.3 Theory test pass rate by historical requirement 107 8.3 Progression of offenders in regaining licence 108 Summary 110 9 Reoffending 111 9.1 Driving unlicensed 111 9.2 Reoffending 113 Summary 116 10 Summary 117 10.1 Defendants 117 10.2 Offenders and use of EDT 117 10.3 Characteristics of offenders 118 10.4 Penalties 119 10.5 Retesting 120 10.5.1 Practical test 120 10.5.2 Theory test 120 10.5.3 Progression 121 10.6 Re-offending 121 11 Recommendations 123 11.1 Encourage more disqualified drivers to regain their licence 123 11.2 Understand psychological characteristics, attitudes and behaviours and previous convictions of offenders 123 11.3 Understand retesting 124 11.4 Improve stakeholder communication, engagement and data 124 11.5 Consider a randomised control trial to assess effectiveness of EDT 125 11.6 Educational or other interventions 125 11.7 Review guidelines for use of mandatory and discretionary EDT 126 11.7.1 Current guidelines 126 A review of serious driving offenders 11.7.2 Our findings 127 11.7.3 Recommendations 128 11.8 Improve understanding of driving offenders, testing and collisions 128 References 130 Appendix A Background to Offences 132 Appendix B DVLA/DVSA data sample 135 Appendix C Postcodes and Socio-economic data 142 Appendix D Survey used for hypothetical case studies 145 Appendix E Additional hypothetical case study data 147 Appendix F Additional data tables 149 Appendix G Literature review 157 A review of serious driving offenders Executive summary The aim of this report was to evaluate retesting for serious driving offenders. Under Section 36 of the Road Traffic Offenders Act, 1988, those convicted of a driving offence may be disqualified, and may be required to pass a practical driving test to regain their licence. This test is mandated as an extended driving test (EDT) for very serious offences. For less serious offences the extended test or the standard test can be ordered discretionally. Offenders are also required to take a theory test to regain their licence. The EDT is assessed in the same way as the standard test, but lasts approximately 70 minutes, compared with 40 minutes for a standard test. The current offences for which an EDT is mandatory are: x Motor manslaughter x Causing death by dangerous driving x Causing serious injury by dangerous driving (from 2012) x Dangerous driving x Causing death by careless driving under the influence of drink or drugs The research aimed to investigate the use of EDTs in courts, and the number and characteristics of offenders who are ordered to take an EDT or standard test for different offences, together with other penalties and re-offending. It was originally intended that the research would include analysis of attitudes to the EDT, preparations for the test and reasons why offenders had or had not regained their licence. However, this was not possible due to difficulties accessing driving offenders to take part in interviews or to complete surveys. The findings were therefore based solely on the following: x Analysis of data on defendants and offenders from the Ministry of Justice (MoJ). x Data on driving offences from DVLA were linked with data on theory and practical tests from DVSA to provide insight into individual offenders and retesting. DVLA routinely remove offence data for drivers who have fulfilled any driving test requirements and whose offence was longer than four years ago (or eleven years for drink driving offences). Therefore a sample of historic DVLA records was also used to assess previous driving convictions and reoffending. x Members of the judiciary were consulted and surveyed to provide qualitative feedback on the use of the EDT and to respond to five hypothetical case studies. The data showed that there were approximately 5,500 drivers who were disqualified until extended test pass and 600 disqualified until standard test pass each year. The offences above that involve death are indictable offences; that is, they are normally heard at the Crown Court in front of a judge and jury. ‘Dangerous’ driving is ‘triable either way’; that is, on indictment at the Crown Court for the most serious offences (or where the defendant elects to) or summarily at a magistrates’ court. In 2013, approximately half of ‘dangerous driving’ offenders were committed for trial at the Crown Court. 1 A review of serious driving offenders Both magistrates’ courts and the Crown Court deal with a large volume of hearings. In percentage terms mandatory EDT offences account for approximately 3% of defendants at the Crown Court and 0.2% of defendants at the at magistrates’ courts in 2013. Use of EDT in courts The majority of EDTs ordered were for ‘dangerous driving’ (81%); 4% of EDTs given were for the other offences for which the EDT is mandatory and 15% of those ordered were for offences where EDT can be ordered discretionally (Figure 1). Figure 1: Use of EDT for offences (DVLA data, 2011 – 2015(part)) Between 2009 and 2013 the number of ‘dangerous driving’ offences reduced by 23% (from 3,400 in 2009 to 2,700 in 2013). The number of ‘causing death by dangerous driving’ offences approximately halved from 233 to 110 over the same period.