Speed Awareness Course Review
Discussion
I did one 2 weeks ago at Dartford Judo Club.
I quite enjoyed it - I need to get out more I appreciate that.
Run by Jack and Jackie 8 until 12:30.
There was "no speed kills", no videos of crashes / injured people, the course was more about our attitude to speed and the consequences of it.
One lady was caught doing 32mph and which we all thought was grossly un-fare, although she did admit to braking to get down to 32mph. The attitude was it is only a little bit over limit, so she should be let off, the law is still the law.
There was no overall know it all, although I scored points for know the difference between a single and a dual carriage way - rolling the football from one kerb to another, which I learnt on these very pages !
Loads of people didn't know the speed limit in a single carriage way, lots of 40mph, one guy said 45 - WTF !
One lady asked if somebody was sitting the middle lane doing 70mph, which is annoying can she overtake ? No the limit is 70.
The course was a bit too long, purely as they ran out of real valued topics to look at and towards the end it seemed to drift a bit.
We are all so caught up in the "it wont happen to me" that very little will change other than being more vigilant for cameras.
As you get older you realise that if you join in, the course goes much quicker than if you just sit there in the huff, objecting to it.
I was dared to turn up in the Lambo, but felt I would look even more of an **** than normal !
del mar said:
One lady asked if somebody was sitting the middle lane doing 70mph, which is annoying can she overtake ? No the limit is 70.
Doesn't surprise me. I've had a few conversations with people who were convinced that because it's in the interests of safety to complete an overtake as quickly as possible, that speed limits didn't apply when overtaking!Sheepshanks said:
del mar said:
One lady was caught doing 32mph and which we all thought was grossly un-fare, although she did admit to braking to get down to 32mph.
Was the 32 her opinion? It's not set in concrete but all the guidance is that nothing happens until a true 35 (10%+2MPH).spikyone said:
Always interesting to hear people's thoughts on these, I shall be attending one soon. I'm sure there will be plenty of times that I'll need to bite my tongue!
I was rather surprised that it's almost £25 cheaper than the fine...
This is what I wrote some time ago. I still stand by it even though people will come along and say things like, you only get out what you put in etc etc. They're wrong.I was rather surprised that it's almost £25 cheaper than the fine...
mygoldfishbowl said:
I went on a course recently, I hated it & nearly walked out at the point I realised they would be trying to make us interact with other people & the instructors themselves. I don't enjoy interacting, so I didn't. They divided us all into groups of 4 to interact, I didn't, so there was some groups of 4, 1 group of 3 & 1 group of 1, me. I hate interacting.
Also everything was in confidence so when the multiple choice questions were being answered there was no way of telling who knew what, so I could have selected the most ridiculous answers & no one would have been any the wiser.
For some reason some people wanted to tell a story, to get a point across. I didn't give a flying feck what their point was no more than they would have cared what mine was, but I neither had a point or a story & just wished these people would shut the hell up so we could all get away on time.
One fella got asked to leave for repeatedly falling asleep which was the highlight of the whole 4 hours.
I hated it & will never ever go on one again what ever the circumstances as long as I live
Also everything was in confidence so when the multiple choice questions were being answered there was no way of telling who knew what, so I could have selected the most ridiculous answers & no one would have been any the wiser.
For some reason some people wanted to tell a story, to get a point across. I didn't give a flying feck what their point was no more than they would have cared what mine was, but I neither had a point or a story & just wished these people would shut the hell up so we could all get away on time.
One fella got asked to leave for repeatedly falling asleep which was the highlight of the whole 4 hours.
I hated it & will never ever go on one again what ever the circumstances as long as I live
Had to do one (my first) around 3 months ago in Islington; surprised by how much it didn't suck. We seemed to have a decent group of chatty people and the two instructors were very engaging. There were one or two people there who obviously weren't interested but they just kept quiet and the instructors didn't seem to mind. I've heard stories to the contrary and I'm sure a lot of it depends on the attitude of the instructors - luck of the draw really.
Sheepshanks said:
del mar said:
One lady was caught doing 32mph and which we all thought was grossly un-fare, although she did admit to braking to get down to 32mph.
Was the 32 her opinion? It's not set in concrete but all the guidance is that nothing happens until a true 35 (10%+2MPH).mygoldfishbowl said:
spikyone said:
Always interesting to hear people's thoughts on these, I shall be attending one soon. I'm sure there will be plenty of times that I'll need to bite my tongue!
I was rather surprised that it's almost £25 cheaper than the fine...
This is what I wrote some time ago. I still stand by it even though people will come along and say things like, you only get out what you put in etc etc. They're wrong.I was rather surprised that it's almost £25 cheaper than the fine...
mygoldfishbowl said:
I went on a course recently, I hated it & nearly walked out at the point I realised they would be trying to make us interact with other people & the instructors themselves. I don't enjoy interacting, so I didn't. They divided us all into groups of 4 to interact, I didn't, so there was some groups of 4, 1 group of 3 & 1 group of 1, me. I hate interacting.
Also everything was in confidence so when the multiple choice questions were being answered there was no way of telling who knew what, so I could have selected the most ridiculous answers & no one would have been any the wiser.
For some reason some people wanted to tell a story, to get a point across. I didn't give a flying feck what their point was no more than they would have cared what mine was, but I neither had a point or a story & just wished these people would shut the hell up so we could all get away on time.
One fella got asked to leave for repeatedly falling asleep which was the highlight of the whole 4 hours.
I hated it & will never ever go on one again what ever the circumstances as long as I live
Also everything was in confidence so when the multiple choice questions were being answered there was no way of telling who knew what, so I could have selected the most ridiculous answers & no one would have been any the wiser.
For some reason some people wanted to tell a story, to get a point across. I didn't give a flying feck what their point was no more than they would have cared what mine was, but I neither had a point or a story & just wished these people would shut the hell up so we could all get away on time.
One fella got asked to leave for repeatedly falling asleep which was the highlight of the whole 4 hours.
I hated it & will never ever go on one again what ever the circumstances as long as I live
I took part in one in Lancashire years ago when they first were trialled, which also included a driving assessment with an instructor/examiner. I understand they have changed a lot since then, but the general theme was IF YOU DO 31MPH THEN ALL OF THE CHILDREN WILL DIE!!!!
During the assessment which was around Leyland at school parole out time, the examiner was trying his best, and I was also trying best to heed what he was saying.
He was telling me about constantly scanning all the mirrors, the speedo, the road ahead, look out for hazards etc - get into a routine of rear mirror, windscreen, speedo, windscreen, side mirrors, windscreen, etc waving his hands around and pointing at what I should be looking for.
It was at that point that a young kid ran out in front of us, and it was by pure luck that I didn't collide with him.
The drive back was rather subdued, and nothing was said on his report about it.
That was in 2001 or 2002, and I've had a clean licence since. Well, in the UK at least...
During the assessment which was around Leyland at school parole out time, the examiner was trying his best, and I was also trying best to heed what he was saying.
He was telling me about constantly scanning all the mirrors, the speedo, the road ahead, look out for hazards etc - get into a routine of rear mirror, windscreen, speedo, windscreen, side mirrors, windscreen, etc waving his hands around and pointing at what I should be looking for.
It was at that point that a young kid ran out in front of us, and it was by pure luck that I didn't collide with him.
The drive back was rather subdued, and nothing was said on his report about it.
That was in 2001 or 2002, and I've had a clean licence since. Well, in the UK at least...
To answer your points;
Mutley - turned up within a week I think, you have a time frame to apply for the course.
Sheepshanks - the NIP showed 32mph, but as she was breaking she probably hit it at say 35mph on the speedo ?
Goldfish - we have all been on courses that drag on and on, to join in makes time appear to go faster !
Mutley - turned up within a week I think, you have a time frame to apply for the course.
Sheepshanks - the NIP showed 32mph, but as she was breaking she probably hit it at say 35mph on the speedo ?
Goldfish - we have all been on courses that drag on and on, to join in makes time appear to go faster !
Who ran your course? Was it AA drivetech? It sounds quite different in content to mine.
I've done two with the AA (just under 3 years apart) and they seem to have changed quite a lot. This recent one was very structured and to my mind very cleverly done with the specific premise to convince people that marginal speeding carries a significant danger. Now by very clever, I mean very cleverly manipulative to achieve that aim. Needless to say, when the poll (did yours have the remote polling handsets?) was done at the end, everyone agreed that marginal speeding is dangerous. Well everyone but one!
So here's the plot...
intro stuff
Tiff Needell video that shows that if you are going 2 mph over the limit, you whack the cardboard dummy
Loads of stuff about speed limit recognition (perhaps useful if you don't know how to tell the limit)
Stuff
Some stuff about hazard perception (hurrah)
Role play around a fictitious fatal accident and how all the affected parties felt (actually pretty powerful/sombre stuff)
Rounding up stuff
So the idea is lodged at an early stage that if you go slightly over the limit, the consequences are not good
This is nicely segued into the death of a driver role play which is pretty thought provoking
Cool, job done! Marginal speeding is strongly associated with the possibility of a road death.
Bert
I've done two with the AA (just under 3 years apart) and they seem to have changed quite a lot. This recent one was very structured and to my mind very cleverly done with the specific premise to convince people that marginal speeding carries a significant danger. Now by very clever, I mean very cleverly manipulative to achieve that aim. Needless to say, when the poll (did yours have the remote polling handsets?) was done at the end, everyone agreed that marginal speeding is dangerous. Well everyone but one!
So here's the plot...
intro stuff
Tiff Needell video that shows that if you are going 2 mph over the limit, you whack the cardboard dummy
Loads of stuff about speed limit recognition (perhaps useful if you don't know how to tell the limit)
Stuff
Some stuff about hazard perception (hurrah)
Role play around a fictitious fatal accident and how all the affected parties felt (actually pretty powerful/sombre stuff)
Rounding up stuff
So the idea is lodged at an early stage that if you go slightly over the limit, the consequences are not good
This is nicely segued into the death of a driver role play which is pretty thought provoking
Cool, job done! Marginal speeding is strongly associated with the possibility of a road death.
Bert
I did an AA drivetech one a little while ago and I thought it was decent.
However, it had a bizarrely reverse effect on me.
I have always been relatively strict at sticking to close to 30mph limits.
This course demonstrated that at 30mph, an impact with a pedestrian generally doesn't kill or permanently damage them.
At 35 mph then the consequences are much more serious.
Made sense and at face value very believable. But all through it I got to thinking that they deliberately avoided any mention of braking and didn't account for it at all in their statistics. Hence I am fairly certain that if I was going 38 mph that if something completely unexpected happened that I could at the very least brake to 30 before a collision, and in most cases much more than that.
So I concluded that I could definitely afford to go a fair bit faster than I do which was a real bonus!
However, it had a bizarrely reverse effect on me.
I have always been relatively strict at sticking to close to 30mph limits.
This course demonstrated that at 30mph, an impact with a pedestrian generally doesn't kill or permanently damage them.
At 35 mph then the consequences are much more serious.
Made sense and at face value very believable. But all through it I got to thinking that they deliberately avoided any mention of braking and didn't account for it at all in their statistics. Hence I am fairly certain that if I was going 38 mph that if something completely unexpected happened that I could at the very least brake to 30 before a collision, and in most cases much more than that.
So I concluded that I could definitely afford to go a fair bit faster than I do which was a real bonus!
I almost feel like getting caught so that I can try one of these out. I look forward to the general question "What's the national speed limit on a single carriageway A-road", so that being a driving God and a general smart-arse I can answer "it depends on what you're driving" and then cover cars, trailers, motorhomes, coaches and goods vehicles.
WJNB]pikyone said:
Always interesting to hear people's thoughts on these, I shall be attending one soon. quote]
Hopefully you too will post a review, but don't forget to end it by saying you considered taking your Lambo/Aston Martin/Maserati/Veyron or whatever so as to impress us all.
The Ferrari had a flat battery so couldn't take that !Hopefully you too will post a review, but don't forget to end it by saying you considered taking your Lambo/Aston Martin/Maserati/Veyron or whatever so as to impress us all.
You believe you are going to spend four hours being told that speed kills, people at work thought it would be funny to turn up in a fast car and the try to to be all apologetic for speeding.
I even described myself as a ****, what more do you want ?
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