Speed awareness course

[Christmassydecs]

I’m so upset to have received notice in the post that I drove at 43mph in a 30mph zone. No excuses, I did it and I’m thoroughly ashamed. It wasn’t a built up area but a country road in Cumbria I’ve never previously driven on and I missed any 30 sign. I’m normally a very careful driver and reached age 69 trouble free.

Has anyone attended a speed awareness course as an alternative to licence points and is it a theory test or more listening to talks? I’m not sure if I’ll be eligible to take the course option as from what I’ve read the cut off point is up to 42mph in a 30 zone. I was recorded doing 43mph. Does anyone know if the 42mph is set in stone or if there is room for discretion?

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.

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.

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.

Did you get your punishment through? What was it?