Tuesday 4th October 2005

Driver re-education welcomed

RAC Foundation calls for more speed courses

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Speed awareness

Today the RAC Foundation welcomed ACPO’s announcement to offer speed awareness courses across England and Wales. The Foundation has been campaigned for national speed awareness courses with national guidelines for three years.

Executive director of the Foundation Edmund King said: "It has been clearly demonstrated through extensive pilots that these courses have a favourable effect in changing the driving behaviour and perception of speed.

"Those offenders who have attended speed education courses in areas like Lancashire show real improvements in their driving following attendance. We have argued for three years that these courses would take the sting out of camera enforcement which surveys suggest is seen as a revenue raiser."

The organisation argued that consideration should also be given to offer courses to those whose attendance would produce the biggest gain in accident reduction.

"Inappropriate speed is a problem that needs to be addressed by a package of measures - including driver education, a review of speed limits to ensure realistic limits, and better signing of speed limits including interactive warning signs.

"The Foundation believes that much greater emphasis should be put on driver re-education as an alternative to prosecution. We also stress that automatic enforcement by camera is no substitute for traffic police and Government has to address the reduction in officers as a matter of urgency.

"We would also suggest that for those doing higher speeds, courses could be linked to a reduced number of penalty points and fines. We believe that every driver caught speeding should be offered a speed awareness course at least once. We also support the proposal for "driver re-training" for more serious offences."

The Foundation said that it has been campaigning for a scheme of national speed awareness courses following national guidelines as initial research suggests that those attending the courses are less likely to re-offend.

However, the body stressed the need for national guidelines "as the quality of current pilot courses varies considerably. All courses should have a practical element with the offender actually going on the road with an advanced instructor. Already more than 25,000 drivers have had the benefit of such courses in Lancashire."

Image courtesy Picture-newsletter

[_VTEC_]

"Those offenders who have attended speed education courses in areas like Lancashire show real improvements in their driving following attendance. We have argued for three years that these courses would take the sting out of camera enforcement which surveys suggest is seen as a revenue raiser."

Improvements in their driving? What, because they refrain from breaking the posted limit now?

Anyone else not like the tones that emanate from the RAC foundation? Bit of an underlying obsession with speed I can see.

edit: just to say that I've re-read the article and it seems they mean quite well actually. My bad.

>> Edited by _VTEC_ on Tuesday 4th October 15:12

[apache]

No, you're on the money. Note how many times is 'speed' mentioned in that article, absolutely no mention of driving standards, considerate, defensive driving or distance perception.
Drive slowly and everything will be fine. It's a feeble sop nothing else

[shoestring7]

Judging by what you see on the roads every day, any form of driver training, be it 'Speed Awareness' (by which I expect they mean hazard awareness), or 2 hours on a skidpan is going to be better than none. On that basis you are going to see an improvement in standards what ever metric you choose.

My suggestion is that the insurance companies insist that any driver suffering a fault accident is subject to the same choice; training or bigger premium increases.

SS7

[7db]

It all sounds chronically anecdotal to me.

I mean did they really do a controlled experiment on drivers who has the re-education and those who did not?

[antispeed]

Just wondering? how many of you would pay a £100 fine for speeding, rather than £60 and 3 points?
even if you thought you were not driving at the time or some other reason in which you were possibly not guilty??
or would you rather pay£95 and go on a days training in speed kills political ?

[Peter Ward]

7db said:

It all sounds chronically anecdotal to me. I mean did they really do a controlled experiment on drivers who has the re-education and those who did not?

You mean like they did controlled experiments on accident rates on roads with and without speed cameras?

Most people can hardly add up, let alone determine whether a scientific experiment has delivered a statistically valid result. There's no hope of sensible assessments for speed cameras, speed awareness courses or even the effect of more traffic police on the roads. Anecdotes rule -- they are the very foundation of soundbite politics.

[nelly1]

antispeed said:

Just wondering? how many of you would pay a £100 fine for speeding, rather than £60 and 3 points? even if you thought you were not driving at the time or some other reason in which you were possibly not guilty?? or would you rather pay£95 and go on a days training in speed kills political ?

I had to do a two day 'Driver Improvement' course in lieu of a "certain conviction for careless driving" (for nothing more than losing the back end of my Tuscan and having a small tete-a-tete with a lamppost! ).

Hmmmmm.......6 points and god-knows-what-fine, or 2 days off work and £175, and we'll say no more about it!

I think the phrase you're looking for is blackmail !!!!

[JoolzB]

RAC said:

"Those offenders who have attended speed education courses in areas like Lancashire show real improvements in their driving following attendance."

What are the improvements exactly? People slowing down? Driving to condition, being more aware?

RAC said:

"Inappropriate speed is a problem that needs to be addressed by a package of measures - including driver education"

Eh????? Inappropriate speed or exceeding a limit?

RAC said:

"We would also suggest that for those doing higher speeds, courses could be linked to a reduced number of penalty points and fines. We believe that every driver caught speeding should be offered a speed awareness course at least once. We also support the proposal for "driver re-training" for more serious offences."

Why should you retrain somebody to a better standard that is already at a good standard. Speed seems to be the only indicator to poor driving yet again, why not start focusing on shite drivers getting re-trained. In my experience a lot of people who tend to drive fast are far safer and more capable than those that stick to limits.

Still... it's a step in the right direction and will at least start to reduce the number of people who get banned for totting.

[7db]

Peter Ward said:

...Most people can hardly add up, let alone determine whether a scientific experiment has delivered a statistically valid result. There's no hope of sensible assessments for speed cameras, speed awareness courses or even the effect of more traffic police on the roads. Anecdotes rule -- they are the very foundation of soundbite politics.

Then shouldn't we have "experts" (who can add up), giving anecdotal soundbites about the fact their figures don't add up?

I'm continually disappointed that journalists can't add up, or indeed seem to have been educated at all in much other than reading Jane Austen and copying out Press Releases.

[stenniso]

There's a good chance that people going on these courses for being only a few MPH over a limit are in all respects safe drivers anyway, who may have tripped the camera for a number of simple reasons (looking at the road rather than the speedo, change of gradient, missed a change of speed limit, etc.). These types of people are unlikely to get caught again, as they are already safe drivers. By there own admission, they are sending only the "safer" offenders on the course.

This is like sending someone who uses Night Nurse for a cold to a drug rehabilitation centre. When they come out they are unlikely to use illegal drugs!

To say that this course is making them safer drivers is a presumption. Has any research been done into the number of people that get one speeding fine, then don't get another one? How many of these didn't get the driving course?

I'm not sure I would like to do one of these courses, spending a day being patronised and talked down to by supporters of a flawed safety mantra. However, when given the choice between my clean licence and points, who knows?

[james_j]

This sounds like self-justification.

Most drivers caught are the safe ones anyway, so what "improvement" are we talking about? It's utter b@lls.

[Peter Ward]

stenniso said:

There's a good chance that people going on these courses for being only a few MPH over a limit are in all respects safe drivers anyway, who may have tripped the camera for a number of simple reasons (looking at the road rather than the speedo, change of gradient, missed a change of speed limit, etc.). These types of people are unlikely to get caught again, as they are already safe drivers. By there own admission, they are sending only the "safer" offenders on the course. This is like sending someone who uses Night Nurse for a cold to a drug rehabilitation centre. When they come out they are unlikely to use illegal drugs! To say that this course is making them safer drivers is a presumption. Has any research been done into the number of people that get one speeding fine, then don't get another one? How many of these didn't get the driving course? I'm not sure I would like to do one of these courses, spending a day being patronised and talked down to by supporters of a flawed safety mantra. However, when given the choice between my clean licence and points, who knows?

You're right. For people who are just over the limit, it's likely to be a random occurence as you say. This approach is therefore the same as locating speed cameras where random accidents have happened and then claiming that they save lives.

Where there are accident blackspots, the root causes should be addressed. Where there are accidents-waiting-to-happen drivers, the root causes should be addressed. All else is pseudoscience.

[justinp1]

Peter Ward said:

stenniso said: There's a good chance that people going on these courses for being only a few MPH over a limit are in all respects safe drivers anyway, who may have tripped the camera for a number of simple reasons (looking at the road rather than the speedo, change of gradient, missed a change of speed limit, etc.). These types of people are unlikely to get caught again, as they are already safe drivers. By there own admission, they are sending only the "safer" offenders on the course. This is like sending someone who uses Night Nurse for a cold to a drug rehabilitation centre. When they come out they are unlikely to use illegal drugs! To say that this course is making them safer drivers is a presumption. Has any research been done into the number of people that get one speeding fine, then don't get another one? How many of these didn't get the driving course? I'm not sure I would like to do one of these courses, spending a day being patronised and talked down to by supporters of a flawed safety mantra. However, when given the choice between my clean licence and points, who knows? You're right. For people who are just over the limit, it's likely to be a random occurence as you say. This approach is therefore the same as locating speed cameras where random accidents have happened and then claiming that they save lives. Where there are accident blackspots, the root causes should be addressed. Where there are accidents-waiting-to-happen drivers, the root causes should be addressed. All else is pseudoscience.

I agree. Self justification at its worst. Drivers who drive a few miles per hour over *some* limits are mostly those who are experienced and confident drivers who are driving at a perfectly safe speed for the conditions. If all of us do this to a certain extent, the law of averages would say that the more you drive, the more chance you have of being caught, and thus the worse driver you are and the more training you need.

I would hazard a guess that the majority of accidents are caused by drivers who have less experience and drive less than say 5000 miles per year. More accidents are *caused* by excessive speed at or under the posted limit than above, due to driving faster than the conditions allow.

So; we will be getting training schemes populated by people breaking the posted limit but driving safely more than those who are actually causing the accidents... A similarly authoritarian (but more successful) scheme would be to ban all drivers who would drive less than 6000 miles per year, as they are not having as much experience and road sense and are thus more of a danger. Rediculous I know, but makes more sense and would cut the accident rate a darn site more than re-educating good drivers with a numpties 'speed kills' propaganda video.



>> Edited by justinp1 on Wednesday 5th October 17:17

[outrider]

I'd rather fight than have some holier than thou camera partnership tawat preaching at me all ing day about speeding for chrisake! It's about time drivers told 'em where to stick their re-education crap.