FOI 31933
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST REFERENCE NO: HRC0031933/26
I write in connection with your request for information which was received on 24th September 2026. Please find below the response to your request:
How many people in the last 12 months have received a fine for hogging the middle lane of a motorway compared to how many people have received a speeding fine on a motorway for doing less than 80 when the limit applied was 70.
Reply
Your request for information has been considered in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (“the Act”), and I am not obliged to provide the information requested.
S.12(1) of the Act states that a public authority is not obliged to comply with a request for information if the authority estimates that the cost of complying with the request would exceed the “appropriate limit”. For police forces in England and Wales, the "appropriate limit" is £450 or 18 hours of work as set by the Freedom of Information (Fees and Appropriate Limit) Regulations 2004.
The information you have requested is not available in a readily retrievable format. There is not a specific offence for middle-lane hogging. It may be viewed as driving without due care and attention, but that encompasses various offences. We would have to manually review all due care offences to ascertain which are for hogging the middle lane. Therefore, in order to ascertain whether the information you have requested is held would take in excess of 18 hours as each record would have to be checked individually.
In accordance with s.17(5) of the Act, this acts as a Refusal Notice.
Under s.16 of the Act I have a duty to provide advice and assistance in relation to your request.
Unfortunately, due to the volume of records that would need to be reviewed I am unable to identify information for this part of your request that could be supplied within the fees limit.
However, I can provide the information requested the part of your request for: how many people have received a speeding fine on a motorway for doing less than 80 when the limit applied was 70, as this was retrieved during our initial research. This should not be taken as a precedent that additional information would be supplied outside of the time/fees legislation for any subsequent requests.
West Mercia Police follow NPCC guidelines and start enforcement at 10%+2, therefore ‘less than 80’ will be 79MPH only.
There were 11852 offences at 79MPH on a motorway in West Mercia based on the period 1/9/25 to 1/9/26.