Speeding Fine

[English Kate]

Decision has been made. Course it is! They do like to scare the crap out of you though. The letter is written in a really provoking way and yet the reality is that it's actually giving me a get out jail free card, that I never had before.

[doctorcat]

Kate,

My dad used to run the courses for Northumbria County Council - and they were run in a way to promote learning and not to vindicate anyone.

I would do the course, look on it as an opportunity to brush up on things long since forgotten from when you took your test. If you go in with this attitude you will get a lot out of it as the instructors will pick up on it - they are only human and doing a their job.

[English Kate]

Yeah I've heard from a few people is't not a bad thing to go on. I just didn't realise that they suggested it when you are only a mile or two over the limit. Just seems a bit silly, but much better than points, so what the hell, I'll do it.

[sarahxxx]

Take the course, you only get one chance to do it and it is amazing how you suddenly get a run on things. My partner has just had 3 parking tickets in 5 weeks yet not had one for about 6 years

The course is supposed to be a good experience and according to stats very few people re-offend, or is it they just don't get caught? I guess we will never know.

[English Kate]

lol think it might be the latter.

[doctorcat]

Hi Kate,

They deal with speed as a percentage of the speed limit - they base it on 30 mph over 70 being a ban then proportion that to all speed limits - so as the speed gets lower the band gets narrower.

Speed cameras are a huge problem as there are no stages of grey. If that had been PC Plod chances are you would either not have been pulled or pulled and told off rather than fined.

The government and several safety groups seem to have got it in their heads that speed kills and as such instead of employing more police and highway patrols to educate people and prevent bad/dangerous driving they have opted to go the cheaper and higher earning route of speed cameras. My argument that doing 90 mph at 04.00am on the M5 will not kill anyone but doing the same at 09.00am will probably. But the problem there is not the speed but the decision of the driver to speed -bad or dangerous driving in my books.

I really hope you enjoy the course and get something out of it - and the reason I say that is that I am one of few people who carry on with driver training after taking their test. Most people take their test, read the highway code for that test then never read it again. Yet laws change, the highway code is updated and people forget things. We are not allowed to do this in industry for things like forklifts, crop sprayers, MEWPS - compulsory retrain and retest every 3 years. What has more potential for serious public injury - a car being driven on the A40 through Oxford at speed or a forklift being driven in a warehouse at the edge of the A40?

I'm going to get off my soapbox now- I really feel passionately about this probably something about doing 60,000 miles a year on public roads and motorcycling into the bargain.

Kate - this is not a dig at you either just something I needed to vent!

[English Kate]

It's ok, vent away. I do think that we should take an MOT when we get to 60 every few years, to certify if we are able to safely drive on the roads. I know my grandad refused point blank to use his seat belt when the law first enforced it and it is often a doddery old person who causes a problem by driving too slowly/cautiously and making other drivers impatient and therefore taking unneccesary risks.

I'm not saying it should be a full on driving test, just one to check responses and and physical abilitity, such as sight, flexibility etc.

[SassyAnn]

It wouldn't be a bad idea to give everyone refreshers and point out the new laws and regulations. The number of people up here who stop at the traffic lights right across the cycling bay is ridiculous. They don't appear to know what it's for.

Also they have a system they put in place in some areas where they have two lines of traffic going into one, and you're supposed to let one car from each lane go through at a time - except people don't read all the traffic signs, so they see the road narrows and you get one huge long tail of traffic going back to a roundabout, rather than two shorter ones.

DrC, I did my course in Northumberland. Annitsford area.

[English Kate]

They should have a free database which is regularly updated, so people can refresh themselves and you should be able to opt to be emailed when new updates are added. That way we could keep up to date by self maintenance.

[doctorcat]

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/TravelAndTra.../index.htm

Ann, my dad did courses at Blaydon and County hall.