Speed awareness course

Did you get your punishment through? What was it?

Unfortunately even those with decades of experience don’t all drive to the conditions of the road.
You refer to motorists speeding, revving, undertaking and amber gambling and then state cyclists are more dangerous. Cyclists killed 12 pedestrians in the 5 years 2019-2023 which equates to 2.4 avg per year. Motorists killed 1955 in the same period, that’s 391 avg. I agree cyclists should be held accountable but they aren’t the problem.

The rule used to be 9mph over, then it was a fine and points. Less was the course and fine. I don't know if that's still the case.

Honestly though, it's fine. It was an innocent mistake, these things happen. It's a rare person that hasn't had points at least once during their driving career.

Well, because it can kill people. And the course I did wasn't framed as punishment - it was educative.

And inattention is absolutely just part of how the human brain works. We'd explode if we paid full attention to everything all the time. You do know that human vision literally works by your brain seeing tiny bits of the picture and joining the dots inbetween? Our brains literally go into autopilot for regular tasks because we automate the thought process.

Like I say, most of the time our inattention costs nothing, because we put in appropriate safeguards to avoid it.

Safe stopping distances are designed around a normal notice-react-stop time, for example, and traffic signals are designed to guide our attention.

It mostly works.

If it's the case that all people are subject to periods of inattention, why punish people for something that is human nature then ?

I missed a sign. It's not an excuse, just an explanation of why I happened to pass a camera at a higher speed than legally allowed.

As it happens, the course providers I went to emphasised that all of us, including those who'd never been caught, are subject to periods of inattention.

And that it's useful to reflect on why you weren't paying as close attention and learn how to bring your attention back to the road.

Most of us make driving errors that we're not even aware of, and there are not obvious consequences.

No, I think it's more about people who have decades of driving experience and are able to drive according to the conditions of the road.

Yeah getting caught speeding shows excellent situational awareness

I didn't say whose law ...

www.parkers.co.uk/car-advice/speed-limiters-what-they-mean-for-you/#:~:text=From%207%20July%202024%2C%20all,up%20to%20it%20post%2DBrexit. But Parker's say the UK did sign up to it.

www.autotrader.co.uk/content/news/mandatory-speed-limiters-on-eu-cars-from-2024

www.rac.co.uk/drive/news/motoring-news/all-new-cars-sold-in-europe-required-to-be-equipped-with-speed-limiters/

According to auto trader and the RAC, the UK isn't adopting this and it won't be law. The RAC says the manufacturers are unlikely to produce cars without it specifically for Britain.

Honestly! I think that sounds quite dangerous as the technology simply isn't there.

Well, that's the law now

Honestly! I think that sounds quite dangerous as the technology simply isn't there. There's a road near me that's 30, national and then 40. All cars I've had show 60 in the 30, 30 in the national and reset to correct in the 40. If a car cannot get to that 60 but the one behind it can them they'll probably be impatient and try to overtake or tailgate and the poor driver at the front can't do a thing apart from turn this legal requirement off!

Sounds great.

I have to fiddle about with mine. Resetting it as the limits change!

My car was registered in 2019.

is there a difference between the mandatory speed limiters and a normal speed limiter?

Starting July 7, 2024, all new vehicles sold in the UK must be equipped with a speed limiter, also known as Intelligent Speed Assistance (ISA):

How it works
ISA uses GPS, satellite navigation, and road sign recognition to automatically limit a vehicle's speed. If the vehicle is traveling over the speed limit, the system can reduce engine power to slow the vehicle down.

Why it's required
The goal of this law is to improve road safety by reducing the number of accidents caused by speeding.

Retrofitting
Vehicles that were manufactured before July 2024 but are not yet sold must be retrofitted with ISA before they can be sold.

Drivers can turn it off
Drivers can turn off the speed limiter, but it will be enabled again when the engine is switched on.

is there a difference between the mandatory speed limiters and a normal speed limiter? Mine is a turn on / opt in kind of thing. My cars 73 plate. Saying that my colleague has a 24 plate that’s also a different brand and it was beeping at him the other day. He said it was the limiter as he was doing 31 and it was a new requirement. Mine is Feb 24 but I’m wondering if I just missed out. The posted speed on the car is still often wrong so I don’t think they should be applying any rules to it yet.

im so glad they conducted that hard hitting study. Shocking findings! To be fair, we always stuck with only excessive speed being an issue. Not 10mph over or anything. I was always shocked to see them payout on cars without MOT with just the cost of the test deducted.

as contrary as I may appear, I can’t abide any dangerous driving which very much includes speeding. So many people don’t seem to understand how they could be a problem despite the rules being extremely well thought out and consistent.

I was trying to forget my time with underwriters.

Be assured anything - any data whatsoever - that an insurer can use to reduce their liabilities they will. I was working on a massive dataset from a black box company to provide speed records to be matched against claims. Apparently the deep learning was - wait for it - people who speed are more likely to have accidents.

Anyway, if you have an accident, and speed is a factor and it can be shown that (a) you were exceeding the speed limit and (b) you had switched off your mandatory speed limiter, then it's not much of a stretch to suggest that maybe your payout should be reduced proportionately.

It's the same logic that reduces your payout if you were stupid enough to not wear a seatbelt.

Given mandatory speed limiters aren't yet a year old, it's a work in progress.

Despite the snark upthread, I really can't think of any reason why a correctly set speed limiter should ever be disabled. Or rather, I could, but they are all so contrived as to be risible.

My son’s friend attended one and said it was just a bloke reading out the Highway Code 🤷‍♀️

Whether they were engaged or not (can be pulled from the vehicles onboard logs) in an accident might become a factor in prosecutions and insurance payouts. I know I was working on pulling telematics from cars 10 years ago for one insurer. They won't miss a chance to pay out less if they can.

@SerendipityJane can you expand on this please? I used to work in claims but never experienced much on limiters. Was a few years ago. So if you have a limiter set at 50 but the limit is 40, that could go against you?

@SerendipityJane I have had a limiter and it's gone over but I've noticed straight away and not continued to use it so not caught me out per se. I prefer cruise control but probably habit over substance. I pretty much always use it, particularly in 30s where I'm paying more attention to dangers. One less thing to watch.

That was like the road I was snapped on. 30/40/30/40/30/40

Usually you can't get up to 40 as the traffic in front extends to a car in the next 30 zone (which makes me question the environmental impacts of a useless 40mph zone and the carbon footprint of having to make and fit signs for it. I heard rumours there's a climate emergency).

As always: it's a limit not a target

The difficulty with the limiter is that I have a stretch of road near me, no more than 3 miles where the speed goes 30, 40, 30, 40, 30, 20. Conditions along it barely change except if you don't clock a switch from 30 to 40 the wombat behind starts flashing.

I've never accidentally overridden a limiter. And I've had 3 cars with them.

Whether they were engaged or not (can be pulled from the vehicles onboard logs) in an accident might become a factor in prosecutions and insurance payouts. I know I was working on pulling telematics from cars 10 years ago for one insurer. They won't miss a chance to pay out less if they can.

I have a limiter and have never been able to get on with them. When I had a Kia, it was great because it really was the limit but all other cars I've had, if you put pressure on the pedal it goes over anyway!

Well, with compulsory speed limiters on new cars, there will be (quite rightly) be a slow ratcheting up of penalties for speeding.

It does but if you're not looking at the screen and concentrating on the road, you'll get a verbal warning at 300 yards (I think it's that) when they can see you for 1km so they've already caught you by the time you hear the warning.