Safe Speed Forums

Anyone been on one of these? Following an encounter with a Lancs scam-van today I have a feeling I may be being dragged onto one in the coming weeks. Reckon I was doing somewhere between 35-37 when thing emerged from the shadows - bright late afternoon sun causing glare on the windscreen and the van had very cleverly chosen to locate itself in the shadows of trees.

I know Mad Moggie has said these courses are quite reasonable but reading through the description on their website they seem a load of patronising twaddle teaching nothing I don't already know.....eg: "During the theory session clients will be encouraged to discuss what causes them to exceed speed limits and how they plan not to do it again."

Anyone have first hand experience of them?

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Why can't we just use Common Sense?

If you do find yourself going, take in a dictaphone/hidden camera. I would love to know what propaganda is being spouted at these things. I reckon could make a decent program of it - an ‘expose’ if you will......

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

A friend has been on one in Lancashire and reports a generally positive experience - they were teaching COAST and the instructors expressed a certain degree of scepticism about speed camera policy. I believe they are worse in other parts of the country.

I agree that if it was like "speedaholics anonymous" it could be very vomit-inducing.

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

My son did one.
They did stuff on COAST, use of gears, hazard awareness and loads of other stuff. Ex-police driving instructors took the course and he didn't feel patronised at all.

A friend has been on one, she got caught driving at 35 in a 30.

The main road she was 'caught' on used to be an NSL but has sinced been divided up into 30 and 40 mph speed limits. The sparsely populated sections (and approximately 100 metres beyond the last house) have been given 30 limits and the entirely rural sections have been given 40 limits.

Needless to say many drivers break the limit and there are multiple talivan ambush points along the road and its a favorite for enforcement.

Anyway, the couse sounded fairly patronising, "all we want you to do is slow down" "if you hit someone at 35 they'll die but at 30 they live" etc etc, et al.....

But also they played video footage of recently bereaved relatives - this made people on the course start sobbing apparently. This, I felt this was unacceptable as it seemed more than a little exploitative, especially given most of these 35 mph offenders are not likely to cause such a crash.

How about "The speed limit was too low, and I plan to not do it again by campaigning for higher speed limits".

Wonder how that would go down?

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Pecunia Prius Equitas et Salus

I like that one! And if you saw the road you'd realise how true the statement is. Driving at 35-40 generally means you're tailgated all the way and keeping to 30 makes you feel like a complete prat, it's that painfully slow - ie all the conditions for a traditional talivan hangout.

All hypothetical at the moment though. Was nowhere near the Lancs FPN threshold of 39mph and borderline for their Caution/Speed Awareness Course, (I'll take it ahead of points). Still mildly skeptical but does at least sound like Lancs don't centre it round the usual mantra of "30 is perfectly safe, 31 and you're a maniacal child-killer".

I like Smeggy's idea - thinking of it as an undercover covert operation

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Why can't we just use Common Sense?

In other words they want to know if you are so important that the law doesn't apply to you or if you wanted to obey the limit but lacked the ability to do so.



Yes. several times as an observer.
I found each course useful. But then i take every chance I get to improve my skills, which is why I volunteered to attend as an observer.

Some drivers were adamant they had learned nothing and found the course patronising. Presumeably they were perfect before they attended, the rest of us found the course useful in varying degrees.

However you look at it, its got to be better than points. and at least they are trying to raise standards.

Or some speed limits are ridiculously low...


Agreed, it's better than points, but I'm not 100% sure that they're raising standards if they're just going to bleat on about speed - there's far more to good driving than that...

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Pecunia Prius Equitas et Salus

.....or if the law has been abused such that it has become unimportant/irrelevant.

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

Raising standards is good, obviously. But teaching people that their primary duty to road safety is to obey speed limits lowers standards.

A good course is of course good - a bad couse (and some of them are very bad indeed) is dangerous.

And of course the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

But still legal.
I have no problem with people who think that a specific limit is set too low. I do have a problem when such people ignore that limit and then complain that its unfair to have a penalty imposed.
If you can't do the time - don't do the crime.



Given that the only people who go on a speed awareness course (other than observers) are those who have been caught exceeding the limit it would be surprising if speed were not mentioned. However, on the courses I have attended speed was only a part of it.

The attendees on the course were there to avoid getting points on their licences and on the pre course form only a very few thought they would learn anything.

It rapidly became clear that a significant percentage of them didn't ever think about looking ahead, selecting an appropriate gear, positioning the vehicle for maximum view of the road ahead etc.
Which may explain why every driver on the course had been caught by a fixed camera .

Abused by people who though it unimportant/irrelevant and so ignored it. And now face the easily foreseeable consequences of doing so.

The courses I attended covered a wide range of subjects among which was the need to consider the posted limit as a maximum.

Is there a genuine safety need to 'consider the posted limit as a maximum'?

And if there isn't, the presence of the idea in the course is at least potentially dangerous.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Yeah, by the money-grabbing, face-saving councils and SCPs, except they didn't ignore it...... in the worst possible way!

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

Can any one volunteer as an observer of these courses?

The justice system has more than one angle to consider. The rule of law by consent - ie people choosing to obey all the laws and changing the ones they don't like by way of the ballot box - is a fundamental part of life in the UK. It would be remiss of the course organisers if they failed to point that out.

They also point out that automated speed enforcement would disappear if all drivers just obeyed the rules. Which serves as a counter to those who take the view that the way to get rid of cameras is to turn down fixed penalties and clog up the courts.



Every driver sets out for the day determined to come home with himself and his car undamaged, and with no more points on his licence.
Many drivers fail to achieve this basic aim. To blame even some of those failures on cameras is to miss the point that decisions as to speed, direction, acceleration, braking etc are taken by the driver and not by some external agency.

It was felt necessary to get some feedback from a JP about comments which course organisers were making with regard to possible sentences and, in particular, what courts do or don't consider to be aggravating or mitigating circumstances.

So I volunteered to attend a few courses. As far as i am aware its not normally possible for people to attend - other than by way of formal invite from the SCP, which I suspect you would prefer to avoid.

You could always get a group of friends together, car club, local PH meeting etc and ask for them (or a local traffic cop) to give you a presentation. You might have to cover expenses for a cop or pay a fee to the council. But at least you would be able to comment on the course content rather than guessing about it.

Who only get the chance to extract "stealth tax" from you if you can't or won't exercise some very basic car control.