to not want to go on a speed awareness course?

[suecy]

OK I know I'm going to get flamed but never mind.

Recently got notice of speeding - doing 57 in a 50. I know speeding is wrong, but let's face it, we've all done it and it was a wide open road with nothing going on.

Have today had the chance to go on this course which costs the ssame as the fine but will allow me to avoid the 3 points (1st I've ever had in 25 years of driving).

I don't want to go! Common sense says I should but I just think it'll be loads of presching and telling us off and frankly I left school a quarter of a century ago.

AIBU to live with the points instead?

YABU.

The speed limit is set for a reason. The slower your speed the better chance you have of reacting to danger and avoiding an accident.

If you don't want to do the course take the points instead.

Because MayorQuimby when the course ended, and they asked how people felt, he said, he didn't care, and it wouldn't change his driving habits and that he did it to avoid a fine. That coupled with the previous statement.

The ex-cop who ran the course did say that younger "boy racers" as a group broke the speed limits by a greater amount and tended not to be viable for the course, but did admit that yes, the police were more likely to stop younger people in cars than old gimmers.

The two old gimmers at least learned something and were shocked into silence by some of the statistics. The young squaddie didn't want to listen at all.

I didn't want to be there full stop. I didn't want to be anywhere. At the time I didn't want to be alive. As I went in I thought I'd be the oldest one there, laughed at etc but I wasn't.

Are you trying to tell me that boy racers don't exist? It maybe stereotyping in your eyes but here are the statistics:

ONE in three young male drivers will write off a car in their first year of driving. Young women are half as likely to do so.

ONE-QUARTER of the convictions for causing death by dangerous driving are for drivers under 20, even though this age group represents just 3% of all drivers.
ONE-QUARTER of drivers under 21 who have an accident lose control of their car.
MORE than 130,000 under-25-year-olds were convicted of driving without insurance in 2001, more than half of total convictions.

So perhaps this is why we would automatically assume the group would be full of "tossy boy racers". Because statistics tell us so.

My mum is still raving about the speed awareness course she went on two years ago. She thought it was brilliant. Glad you realise you were being vvu.

Ahh I so wish I had been going slow enough all three times to go on a speed awareness course .

I really think I need to

OH got caught doing 87 in a 40 zone and was "let off" in court with 3 points and a fine .

So I have more points than him.

I agree it is dangerous to speed but some of the speed restrictions down here on dual carriageways and the like (40mph) are quite frankly ridiculous and the accidents that have caused the lowering of the limits have been caused by drink driving, young inexperienced drivers and people getting frusrtaed by the speed limit and overtaking.

The goverment make a lot of money from speeding yet I still see people (esp lorry drivers )driving round on mobile phone which IMO is a damn sight more dangerous.

OH got caught doing 87 in a 40 zone and was "let off" in court with 3 points and a fine

wow - i thought if doing more than double the speed limit then was instant ban - and tbvh 87 in a restricted 40 is faaaaaaaaaaaaaar worse than me doing 81 instead of 70 on a motorway yet have the same punishment

doesnt seem fair to me

Nope not fair at all - there were "exceptional circumstances" which I won't go into - but he used that to his advantage.

But is anything ever really fair?

speed is often made out to be a more major factor than it is, as after all,if the cars weren't moving, they wouldn't have accidents...

most fatal accidents are in 30 zones, motorways are safer BY FAR.....

my premium went up £20 when I got 3 points for speeding - obviously my insurer does not believe it makes me greatly more likely to have an accident (having an accident doubled the premium OTOH!)

when i see a sign like '33 injuries in 3 miles' i always think 'why don't you redesign this stuffing bit of road then!' - poor road design is a major factor (particularly where there are roads crossing dual carriageways, blind junctions, stupid bends, confusing roundabouts etc...)

5% of road deaths are in police road chases
another 5% are pedestrians who are themselves inebriated....

it is obvious to me that on some of the Uks safest roads there are people breaking the speed limit on a regular basis.....(eg. any motorway, where 80 is the norm)

and, whilst we're at it, large speed limit signs are actually mor effective at getting drivers to slow down than speed cameras....

87 in a 40?! He should have been banged up.

Clogging up the country's prison when he is actually serving the country EmmaBemma?

Don't be ridiculous.

no point being banged up,as waste of prison spaces - they should be for murders/rapists/peds etc but very suprised didnt get ban or huge fine and 9 points

but yes sometimes circumstances do chnage things

"Are you trying to tell me that boy racers don't exist? It maybe stereotyping in your eyes but here are the statistics:
"

No I'm not, and I think boy racers who speed are tossers, in the same way that I think middle-aged women who speed are tossers and the same way I think 40 year old men who speed are tossers. I'm merely questioning why you only picked out the boy racer type speeder as a tosser when the course,by the virtue of it's nature as being for people who have been caught speeding would be attended 100% by selfish tossers of all ages and sexes who speed.

So never once in your life have you broken the speed limit mayorquimby?

Not once? Ever?

People speed for all sorts of reasons - not all of them are tossers.

I have always been caught speeding to get from work to pick up mu kids on time. Its not an excuse but it makes me a human being -not a tosser.

I have always paid my fines too - and taken the points on the chin.

nope.
clean bill of health on my licence.

That wasn't what I asked.

But you know and your conscience does.

My best friend who I grew up with was knocked down and killed outright by a speeding driver, ladyanonymous (they reckoned he would have been doing 60 in a 40, through the outskirts of a village) so this sort of thing does tend to raise my hackles.

You didn't mention your partner was serving his country at the time, so forgive me for not being a mind-reader!

If someone fired a gun into a crowded room, without intending to kill someone, they'd be banged up. Cars are just as lethal in the wrong hands.

I'd go on the course - it is a pain having points. Speed limits are not set for any sensible current reason. They have mainly been in place for years and are historic and often ridiculous. Sopposedly it is safe to do 60 miles an hour down the single track road through our village, past the children waitin gon the pavementless verge for the school bus; yet you can only do 70 in the fast lane of the motorway??? Where is the sense in that. Speeding on roads which children walk along is not good but having to stick to a limit set back in 1965, deemed "sensible" given the state of the average car around then, is ridiculous.

"You didn't mention your partner was serving his country at the time, so forgive me for not being a mind-reader! "

That and it shouldn't matter a toss what someones chosen profession is, it doesn't affect their responsibility to adhere to the law.

My sister went on this course and found it really made her think about road safety
this was some years ago, she is careful driver ever since

I know people who have died too. In RTA's from alcohol related problems, from suicide, from drugs deaths from all sorts of things. People die and for that I am truly sorry.

I have NEVER had an accident in my life. What my partner does or does not do is NOT within my control and I certainly am not going to leave someone because he is flawed.

I do not agree with the way he drives either - but he is a big boy.

I mentioned his profession because its a totally over emotive to suggest he should be in jail for doing something which you know NOTHING of the circumstances. The court made a descision based on the FACTS. Not the emotions.

Everyone has their faults and everyone has mistakes which they continue to make.

It just pisses me off that people on here get on their high horses about speeding when I don't believe for one second ANYONE on here who has a driving licence can say they have never once broken the speed limit in their entire driving career.

Well they can say it - but its not a provable fact is it?

MajorQ - do you really think that everyone has a responsibility to adher to the law no matter what? Surely the responsiblity is to do what you think is ethically right rather than focusing on the law.

I don't have an opinion on whether you should leave your husband or not - I don't know either of you! And I know you're not responsible for his actions; I wasn't suggesting you were.

Given all the varied and sometimes comparitively minor crimes that attract custodial sentences in this country, (incidentally I'm pretty sure dangerous driving is one) I really don't think it's all that extreme to suggest that someone driving at 87 - 87! - miles an hour in a 40 zone should do time. That is a criminally reckless speed.

You don't know where he was - what time it was - where he was going - for what reason - or why he was speeding.

The court does and made a descision based on those facts.

And hes not my husband...

I think every driver on the road should probably do some kind of course after, say, ten years. It's very easy to become blase if you drive every day, and it does no harm to be reminded of the fact that you're driving a potentially lethal weapon. I have exceeded the speed limit (normally doing, say, 33 in a 30 limit, though I wouldn't do it now as everywhere around us has cameras all over the place), so I can't claim total innocence; however, I can say that I wouldn't feel hard done by if it were compulsory to do a speed awareness course every ten years.

Right, OK then. Because that's the crucial issue here, that I couldn't remember whether you'd said "DH" or "DP".

For reasons of your own, though you keep cryptically referring to them, you haven't shared the details of these extenuating circumstances here. So it's not really fair to keep bringing them up like the toppest of top trumps. Courts can and do get things wrong and, if I'm honest, your remark that your partner "used [these facts] to his advantage" did raise a few more hackles, and rather suggested he wasn't blue-lighting his way through rush hour traffic with a dying monk in the back at the time.

I agree that all should do a speed awareness course or a refresher course

I find it scarey that you could pass at 17 and be able to drive for over 50 years without needing to retake test/learn new things

I have been driving for nearly 20 yrs and sure have got into some dreadful habbits and sure I would fail my test if I took it now