second time speed awareness course

jej_knowles

jej_knowles

jej_knowles

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Joined
15 Nov 2008
Posts
485
just wanted to vent here nothing more....
Went to my second speed awareness course today ( first was over 3 years ago) sat through the whole thing being jolly and joined in with the group discussion where the instructor teased the the most obvious of answers to the most idiotic questions from us and then encouraged us along with positive reinforcements " good! , well done! pat on the head! "
anyway in the second half of the session my feeling about the course nose dived as we watched video footage of a car driving down a high street we were supposed to all shout out any dangers we had spotted and they came in thick and fast " car! turning! person! 40mph! car door!"
anyway the elevator music came on and thought jesus were not here because we dont know how to drive or the highway code etc how is this helping really?
at this point the instructor draws things to a close and asks if we all feel like we have learnt something today that will help us on our merry non speeding way.
everyone else is " oh yes i think this course should be done on a regular basis regardless of whether you have been caught speeding or not"
I piped up and said " not really"
inst "why is that then?"
me "well i have already done this course 3 years ago"
inst "well then you haven't learnt from the course and maybe this time you will"
me "in my opinion everybody here should already know everything you have told us today or we shouldn't be driving in the first place"
at this point i asked for a show of hands of the people who were doing this for the second time and it was pretty much half the group..
inst "well evidence shows that only 30% of people who attend the course goes on to re-offend "
at this point we agreed to disagree and carried on..
what a load of nonsense is my feeling about these courses, at least you avoid the points and the course is cheaper than the fine so.....:D
 
I assume that you opted to take the course instead of the endorsement? and now you are moaning about the course. Especially amusing since this is your second time on one of these courses so you should have known the score before hand?
 
Well, I suppose it depends on the demographic of people there.

The course I attended was full of old timers who largely had forgotten (or never did know) a lot of incredibly basic aspects of driving a car, such as street lighting signifying a 30 limit or that it's a central reservation that denotes a dual carriageway not just having more than 2 lanes on the road.

For them I expect it is useful and does achieve something.

For the sort of person who just speeds because they don't give a toss about speed limits, the course is never going to help - there's not much you can say in a course that's going to educate or change the mind of a person like that.
 
any chance of some actual paragraphs?

I read about 2 lines and then stopped as it was dreadfully written.

Also "venting" about 2 speed awareness courses in 3 years isn't something that I would be telling to many people about!!
 
Kenai said:
Well, I suppose it depends on the demographic of people there.

The course I attended was full of old timers who largely had forgotten (or never did know) a lot of incredibly basic aspects of driving a car, such as street lighting signifying a 30 limit or that it's a central reservation that denotes a dual carriageway not just having more than 2 lanes on the road.

For them I expect it is useful and does achieve something.

For the sort of person who just speeds because they don't give a toss about speed limits, the course is never going to help - there's not much you can say in a course that's going to educate or change the mind of a person like that.
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Its the central reservation that denotes a dual carriageway. It can be 1 lane or 100+ lanes. Not 2 or more AND a central reservation
 
Yes, I know, what I was referring to was the fact all the people on the course I was on seemed to think anything with more than 2 lanes was a dual carriageway.

I didn't intend to imply I thought it needed both.
 
I got 'vanned' yesterday, 4 miles from my front door. Not sure if I will get a ticket, not silly speed and did wonder why the old bird walking the dogs was waving at me with her walking stick. Funny thing was, some bloke in a Volvo was obviously travelling too fast as he had stopped, was out the car and up at the camera window have a word with the bloke inside :)
 
So basically your saying that the course is a waste of time. It would be better if the instructor could fail people and then they get double points for not taking the course seriously.
 
So you were lucky enough to be given the option to take a second speed awareness course avoiding points on your licence. You chose to take that course having an idea what the content would be then you act up to the instructor at the end. Wow.

Not everyone is a driving legend like yourself, I would be very surprised if I didn't learn something I didn't know if I was to attend one. As for giving the instructor grief at the end I hope it made you feel better because it would have been like water off a ducks back to him.
 
there are far more reckless drivers out there than the people doing 35mph in a 30mph zone but they aren't targeting them because its much easier to hand out fines and speed awareness courses to the masses of perfectly safe driving individuals

apologies for my bad punctuation...... i was never much of an academic but if you want to feel superior go ahead and mock
 
You're right, the system is stupid.

If you've already done the course, and you're caught again, you should get the points, plus the points you could have received last time.
 
jej_knowles said:
there are far more reckless drivers out there than the people doing 35mph in a 30mph zone but they aren't targeting them because its much easier to hand out fines and speed awareness courses to the masses of perfectly safe driving individuals

apologies for my bad punctuation...... i was never much of an academic but if you want to feel superior go ahead and mock
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Pretty much agree.

Put them outside a school during school time. Fair do.

Put them on a road that should never have been 30 in the first place at a time where there are not many cars and no pedestrians on the other hand and then you raise some serious questions.

(Can you guess which situation someone I know was caught in)
 
Bug One said:
You're right, the system is stupid.

If you've already done the course, and you're caught again, you should get the points, plus the points you could have received last time.
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Makes more sense than a rinse and repeat of a course that had no impact because you already know better than the instructor.

I don't think anyone is claiming that minor speeding is the crime of the decade, that's why they effectively give you the option to be let off by attending a course.
 
AshD93 said:
Pretty much agree.

Put them outside a school during school time. Fair do.

Put them on a road that should never have been 30 in the first place at a time where there are not many cars and no pedestrians on the other hand and then you raise some serious questions.

(Can you guess which situation someone I know was caught in)
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indeed, outside my work it's a 40mph zone and if i'm honest it should be 30mph, you have a busy route to a large tesco store, a complex with argos, lidl etc, and a new community centre, yet its 40mph. Take the main town bypass, since construction till 3 years ago it was nsl now its 40mph because they put a bus stop at 1 end for the tesco customers. And where do they police, not the busy road with all the pedestrians off to the shops, no, its the long wide straight road with the single pavement at one side with a bus stop at the start and nothing else. Worst of all more than half of it is a hill so if your coming down it in 6th gear you actually have to brake about half way or the car picks up momentum.
 
jej_knowles said:
but if i had opted to just take the points last time my license would be clean anyway
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But you would HAVE to informed your insurance company.

I'd take the course every time.

Been on two myself. I'm a professional driver. But I'm not up myself so much that I believe I can't be taught anything new.

They make on average 10 changes/additions to the highway code each year. Thats 180 changes since I last read it.
 
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