Taking my punishment and learning lessons on a speed awareness course

So it was back to the classroom for me this morning, to take a speed awareness course. Regular readers will remember my annoyance at getting snapped by a mobile camera doing 35mph in a 30mph zone, at 4.30pm on a Saturday afternoon when there was not another vehicle or pedestrian in sight in either direction. The four-hour course was well-presented and interesting. It made the very valid point that at 30mph a pedestrian has an 80 per cent chance of surviving if hit, but at 35mph – my crime – that’s down to 50 per cent. Everyone in the room was broadly in the same boat; we’d all be done for ‘marginal speeding’ and were there to be educated about the possible consequences of our actions. Fair enough, it’s cheaper in the long run than three points on my licence and my professional life means I was genuinely open-minded and interested to be there. Not so everyone else; someone on my table spend most of the time doodling pictures of flowers and I heard various comments during the coffee break about ‘taking your medicine’ then getting back to the real world. But what amazed me most was the worrying lack of road knowledge by some in the room. An electronic quiz, anonymous sadly, revealed spectacular ignorance of national speed limits. Two people were convinced it was 80mph on a motorway. I was also interested in the age profile of the group. The majority were in their fifties or older, the sort who passed their test in the post-war decades and have been stuck in their ways ever since. The question was asked by the presenter whether everyone should do the course, not just because they were made to. I voted yes. The fact you can take a test at 17 and have no additional training for the rest of your life – now that’s a crime.