Speed Demon

I’m not a petrolhead. 

To me, cars are simply vehicles that transport you from A to B and as long as it starts first time and doesn't require the fuel consumption to be be measured in gallons to the mile, then it’s an acceptable vehicle.  Performance comes so far down my list of priorities that I haven’t even test driven the last two cars I've had.

It may therefore surprise you, dear reader, to learn that I have had four speeding offences in the last 11 years… all of which occurred on deserted roads in the middle of the night, something which I felt pretty miffed about at the time.

The latest of these speeding offences occurred about three months ago and I was dreading receiving the usual £65 fine and 3 points. Therefore, I was unexpectedly surprised to receive a third alternative; I was invited to attend a speed awareness course that would set me back £95 but with no other consequences!

It was a no brainer really, so I booked myself onto the most local course I could and this blogpost, as a bit of a departure from the usual dating disasters, recounts the experience of that day.

I was one of the first to arrive for the lunchtime start and found the two guys running the course excessively enthusiastic.  I sat down and one of them, Jolly Mike, gave me a name badge “to display prominently”.  As my fellow criminals filed in, a balding, pale, wispy haired pensioner dressed from head to toe in pastel green and with big “Buggles” type glasses sat next to me.  Was this a man or a woman?  A search for an Adams Apple was initially inconclusive due to the wrinkly folds of flesh hanging down from the neck, but wait... was that a trace of lipstick or were they very rose coloured lips?  Hmmm.  Not sure. Then the person on the other side said something and a deep, gravelly voice responded… ok, he was a man then.  He had apparently been an HGV driver (amongst other things) years ago.

He was one of the last to arrive and there were only two name badges left, one for Janice and one for Sarah.  The presenter came across looking at his list, clearly puzzled, and said “What’s your name then?  I don’t appear to have you booked on.”

“Yes you do,” came the gruff response, “I’m Janice”.

At that moment it was as much as I could do to stop laughing out loud and clearly quite a few people had the same problem judging from the muffled sniggers emanating from around me.  These developed into a series of loud coughing fits as Mike handed over the name badge with a “There you go, mate” response.  It was like something out of “Little Britain”.  

These coughs lasted some time until Sarah, a native South African, completed the 20 strong group and we were underway.

The introduction was delivered by Bouncy Steve, with lots of smiling, head bobbing and forced laughter. Aside from the usual housekeeping stuff (fire exits, turn mobiles off, etc.) he said that RESPECT was the biggest thing and they would not tolerate abuse, sexism or racism.  Oh, and as they weren’t Government Employees or Police Officers, if anyone wanted to rant they were in the wrong place.  THEY DID NOT DO POLITICS!

Any questions?

“Yes,” piped up a voice from the back, “What time does it finish?”

“Five o’clock” said Steve, smiling and bouncing.

“Oh... it’s not a misprint then." came the disappointed response.

With that we were off but despite the previous warning, the first point someone brought up was… a rant.  There were 3 or 4 in the room clearly up for the fight and Bouncy Steve did his best to laugh and joke his way out of the situation whilst politely trying to remind people that they were speaking to the wrong person in the wrong forum.  Sarah started moaning about the fact that she was missing a day off work to attend this stupid course and didn’t have a choice.  Steve bobbed around the fact that she clearly did and could have taken the fine and points instead.  This prompted her to respond that it was clearly this country’s fault she was caught speeding (yes, seriously) as we gave her the licence to drive over here when she had in fact passed her test in South Africa and we didn't attempt to educate her about our roads.  Jolly Mike laughed through gritted teeth, suggesting that surely it was her responsibility to learn the signs and limits in the country she was driving in… then a voice from the back shouted out "Bloody Africans can’t drive anyway!", Sarah hurled back something along the lines of "Shut your face mate you don't know what you're talking about" and Steve finally stopped bouncing and bobbing.

“LOOK” he shouted, “We’ve got a lot to get through and I’m going to tell you all how it’s going to go, because I think I have to.  WE DON'T CARE!  This is all about YOU and your attitude to speed and you’re only here because you’ve gone over the speed limit.  Whether you take anything from this is up to you but if you don’t then this course won’t be offered to you again for at least 3 years so you’ll get points and maybe a ban.  So, let’s just get through the course, shall we?  I’ll skip the rest of the introduction as otherwise we’ll be here until 6. Let's move on.”

It was like being back at school but it did the trick and shut most people up, apart from a Yorkshireman called Graham who clearly said what he liked and liked what he bloody well said.  Every time he (frequently) opened his mouth there was an audible groan from the rest of the room.  One of his gripes was that there were so many road signs that he couldn’t concentrate on the speedometer, so what was he meant to do?  Someone (me, actually) suggested he might consider taking the bus and Jolly Mike indicated that it was his job as a driver to observe the road signs and perhaps he might therefore examine his driving ability and technique?

The rest of the course was actually very interesting and to be honest it’s the sort of thing that every driver should have to do occasionally.  The stats show that the introduction of traffic calming measures and cameras have reduced road deaths significantly.  

We had a lesson in road signs and how they get there… did you know it is purely reactive to the incidents that occur on that stretch of road? I didn't.


Also, road hazard signs are, of course, like this -

but when they have a yellow background like this -

it means that there has been a fatality or near fatality on that stretch of road. I didn't know that either.  

We are one of the world leaders in continuing road safety and are only consistently beaten by Sweden, who have a zero tolerance rule to road offences.  Is it therefore a co-incidence that their road deaths are the lowest in the world?  Maybe not.  Sadly, no-one is better at killing children on the roads than we are so that's one league table we are trying NOT to be top of.

Other interesting facts and stats –

     1)      Not one person in the room knew the correct UK speed limits for different vehicles on the different types of road,

     2)      Just 1% of the traffic on our roads is on two wheels (i.e motorbikes) but they are involved in a quarter of all accidents,

     3)      Urban areas account for about 65% of road accidents but have the fewest fatalities,

     4)      Motorways account for only 4% of all accidents and so statistically are the safest roads to be on, and

     5)      Most fatalities occur in rural areas where there is far less traffic, poorer roads, higher driving speeds and where it takes longer for the emergency services to arrive.

So I definitely took something positive out of it and am now more “speed aware”, which is the entire point.  How Bouncy Steve and Jolly Mike managed to stay so cheerful throughout is one of life’s mysteries and I take my hat off to them. 

But aside from anything else, my biggest deterrent against speeding must be to surely not to have to attend another course with people like that.