Speed Awareness Course

I've got to leave home at 6.30am to get there in time.

That's punishment enough!!

Oh bless you Merlotgran. I have done this Course and I promise you there are no recriminations or any way will you be made to feel shamed. The ‘teachers’ were friendly and absolutely there to help us. I honestly felt that everyone should do this course - I passed my test in the 1960’s and after so long there was truly so much useful advice. Just enjoy the course and get lots out of it - I did.

My DH did this last year. He said it was fine and informative. He as been driving for many years but said he learnt things on this course that he had no idea about.

has not as!

I've done 3 I have found that the leaders are lovely bit there is always some one moaning that it's not fair that they caught!

Despite the fact that I have done 3 (over about 10 years!) I think they are good and very informative.

Thanks for that, both of you. I passed my test in 1964 so will probably learn a lot.

I don't feel so guilty now kitty.

we,ve just sent off the paperwork following my hubby being caught. We are waiting for info on the course. I am angry with him as i can ill afford £100.00 and I am sick of telling him to slow down. he thinks nothing of doing 90 down the motorway and I dont feel safe, i have told him, but yet he carries on. I,m glad he got caught!!!

I have done one. Caught doing 37 in a 30 road back from Northumberland. Great course. One useful thing I learnt was always drive in 3 rd gear in a 30 zone , rather than 4th and then it is harder to speed.

I found it very informative and useful. It did make me think differently when I drove afterwards.

They remind you of a few of the rules of the road you have probably forgotten and tell you how awful it would be if you hit a young child while driving over the speed limit. I asked them why the parents weren't supervising these young children in the first place to stop then running into the road!!

I could kick myself because I was driving along a road I knew well. On week days the traffic would be nose to tail so you'd be lucky to get to 20mph let alone past 30.

It was the May bank holiday Saturday so for once there was nothing much on the road and I allowed my speed to creep up to 36 without thinking.

Never mind.

I've been on 2. There were about 20 people on each course, of varying ages. The course lasted for about 3 hours, and the main discussion was about preventing accidents/how accidents occur when someone is driving too fast.

Take something for lunch, as they only provide drinks.

Perhaps you should leave at 6am merlot to avoid the temptation to speed!!

I had to go on one for going through red light whilst taking friends to hospital ( deserted streets 2 am)

The people doing it tried their hardest to make it tolerable.

I did one a couple of years ago. We had one very nice leader who knew a lot and was really interesting and one who although experienced was unable to answer the “off-beat” questions and rather put us down instead of admitting to not knowing the answers. This person also made rather sexist and ageist assumptions which was particularly irritating.
I felt particularly aggrieved on behalf of a young woman who had only been driving a short time and who was assumed to be thinking about shopping instead of the road ahead!

Dh did one earlier this year. Don’t worry Merlot, it wasn’t bad and he learned a bit and passed it on to me.
Just don’t let them know your gn name!

I did one last year, got caught doing 34 in a 30 zone. It was very informative and the leaders were excellent. There was plenty of craic as well as learning. No one was tapped in the knuckles.

I did one a couple of years ago. It was great, I learned some stuff about how to guess, ie know, the speed limit even if you couldn't see a sign. Sadly, I was camered six months later, on a dual carriageway in an area I was new to. Id thought the limit would be 40 and was doing 38. The limit was 30 on a short stretch of road.

I did a speed awareness course after having been caught doing 38 through a village. In mitigation, I was late for work and the road was very quiet.
I found the course very informative, and it surprised me how ignorant of the law some people are. There was a real cross section of society there. I enjoyed the day but don't want to repeat it.

Thanks kitty, I don't feel embarrassed now to admit to two courses. the first was in the Thames Valley where they are ultra vigilant - most of my family who live in the area have done at least one - except my senior DGD who is an excellent driver.
The next one was in Manchester though the offence was in Macclesfield. The traffic round Manchester was so horrendous that I was late.
I try to put into practice what we learnt, and hope it saves me from getting booked again.

I saw my landlady killed in a road accident, my sister died in a road accident and my daughter has been left with a disability as a result of a road accident. None of them were in anyway responsible for what happened to them.

In each case the driver was well within the speed limit, not driving drunk, or drugged or erratically, but in each case in a very complicated traffic/road situation, the driver failed to take on board one key factor. Twice because they couldn't see it and the third case because of poor situation and maintenance of street lighting.

The last accident I was in, my car was hit at little more than walking speed by a driver who had had me clearly in his vision for 100 yards at least, but he was an older driver whose reactions were shot, and he would have run over and killed that notional 5 year old because he would have hit them, long before he hit the brake.

I find this obsession with speed, by that I mean the minor accidental speed excesses, not the major flagrant breaking of the law by really excessive speed odd.

The main cause of accidents, by a long way, twice as many as the next cause, is Drivers failing to look properly, followed by Failure to accurately judge another persons path or speed. Speeding isn't even in the top 5 causes. Why not have courses for those who actually cause accidents because they did not look properly or misjudged other people's speed or path. These would probably reduce acidents far more than speeding courses.

MOnica, why not have both? I know I reoffended but, I did learn on the speed awareness course. Most people agree it helpful
In fact, the course covers your points about looking properly

DH had to do one and came home saying he had learned a lot and also passed info on.