Speed Awareness Course Review
Discussion
AH33 said:
I don't think I'd be good on one. I coudn't bite my tongue if they tried telling me 32mph was dangerous or 71mph was "not allowed".
To be fair, it isn't patronising at all, surprisingly. It is far more showing you statistics and a lot of general driving tips for pre-empting issues. Very concise and not preachy.The only bit that was actually speed related was some stopping distance stuff and then going through statistics of fatalities at given speeds. These were all relayed matter-of-factly with no trace of wrist slapping. I was extremely impressed at how well they avoided doing that
RegMolehusband said:
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.
Sorry to crush your dreams, but they ask you to list/guess the speed limits for 5 different vehicle types over 4 different road scenarios, so no chance for you to use your smug face. I honestly didn't know they had increased the speed limits for one of the vehicle classes in the last 2 years; so turns out I did get something useful out of it. blindswelledrat said:
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!
This is the key thing I noticed. They present several completely unrelated 'facts', knowing that most people will relate the two even though there is no basis to do so.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!
They will state that crashes at 40 instead of 30 are more likely to kill someone. They will then state that doing 40 in a 30 is bad.
What they don't mention is whether the bulk of serious 40mph crashes are dozy people doing 40 in a 60, speeders doing 40 in a 30, or people who were doing 70 on the motorway and braked hard down to 40 before the collision.
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.
I only have a GT86. Based on most PH threads, it's a bloody miracle I was able to break the limit in the first place...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.
parabolica said:
RegMolehusband said:
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.
Sorry to crush your dreams, but they ask you to list/guess the speed limits for 5 different vehicle types over 4 different road scenarios, so no chance for you to use your smug face. I honestly didn't know they had increased the speed limits for one of the vehicle classes in the last 2 years; so turns out I did get something useful out of it. 
parabolica said:
Sorry to crush your dreams, but they ask you to list/guess the speed limits for 5 different vehicle types over 4 different road scenarios, so no chance for you to use your smug face. I honestly didn't know they had increased the speed limits for one of the vehicle classes in the last 2 years; so turns out I did get something useful out of it.
This 'info' seems fairly irrelevant to the course, & hence a waste of time. Surely you can see that a another vehicle is going slower or faster than you, irrespective of its specific speed limit??The speed limits are a key tenet to the speed awareness course so they get some focus! It's not useless information to know more about the limits of the vehicles that you are driving and know that others have different limits. To the extent you don't know it already of course!
Biker 1 said:
parabolica said:
Sorry to crush your dreams, but they ask you to list/guess the speed limits for 5 different vehicle types over 4 different road scenarios, so no chance for you to use your smug face. I honestly didn't know they had increased the speed limits for one of the vehicle classes in the last 2 years; so turns out I did get something useful out of it.
This 'info' seems fairly irrelevant to the course, & hence a waste of time. Surely you can see that a another vehicle is going slower or faster than you, irrespective of its specific speed limit??People don't half make stuff up. A driving instructor (who these tutors are) gave a ticket for a dodgy plate?
The people on the course generally fall into
- no idea what the speed limits are
- no idea what speed they drive
- know full well what they're doing and got caught out
The 35 in a 30 is not a crime type fell into the first two categories more than the last.
The people on the course generally fall into
- no idea what the speed limits are
- no idea what speed they drive
- know full well what they're doing and got caught out
The 35 in a 30 is not a crime type fell into the first two categories more than the last.
s p a c e m a n said:
When we stopped for a break one of the younger blokes went out for a smoke in his car that was parked in view of the organisers, they went out and gave him a ticket for illegal number plate font and then spent another 15 minutes trying to find something else wrong with his car.
Bulls
t. The courses are run by private companies on behalf of the Police. The people who present the courses are mostly ex driving instructors and the like.s p a c e m a n said:
They're all driving instructors?
All the ones I've met are. They make a point about it not being the police. Makes perfect sense, somebody who's living is helping people drive, have a full knowledge of the rules and cost maybe £40 an hour following a set agenda or somebody who should be out policing. del mar said:
Run by Jack and Jackie 8 until 12:30.
Were they a larger, bald man in his 50's and a bit of an essex wife-type, brunette, mid-40s? If so they did my course in Essex. Friendly types, course was boring but went quick enough if you joined in. Enjoyed the various "too important and clever for this" types getting put in their place when they tried to dominate the session and belittle the speakers.parabolica said:
Mine was run by AADriveTech; the two guys we had were advanced-training driving instructors.
We used to use DriveTech for Defensive Driver training at work - a lot of the trainers then were serving police officers. The others were recently retired and used to allude to basically being spies!Did mine this morning and they said they were driving instructors and stressed it was a council course and not a police one. The main thing I found was that they were not preachy, presented facts and statistics in a interesting way and as she said we were there to save money as its cheaper than the fine and no points so we might as well take note of what they say.Whats the point of trying to be a smart arse as we all admitted our guilt by being there.I cant say that it will make me drive slower but perhaps be more aware of speed limits and hazard perception.
I'm sure drivers that speed in a 30 do it out of habit, almost every day I drive through Penketh near Warrington, it's about 2 miles of dual carriageway with crossings, houses and many junctions.
Many many cars overtake me , some crawl past at 32, some doing 40+ but I catch most of them up at the traffic lights at the end, or the next set , or the set after that.
I learned many years ago speeding in town is utterly pointless, I'm so used to driving at 30 now I barely have to look at the speedo to know what speed I'm doing.
As I don't speed in 30 limits I've had a clean licence for 20+ years, most of that working as a courier in and out of cities and towns on a daily basis, a guy I worked with had been doing the job for 7 months and managed to rack up 9 points
I'm not trying to be holier than thou, just worked out it was pointless , 23 sets of traffic lights including pelican crossings in a 6 mile stretch locally to me, no chance of saving any time while the roads are so congested either, I'm sure nobody works any more judging by all the cars on the road at 11am
Many many cars overtake me , some crawl past at 32, some doing 40+ but I catch most of them up at the traffic lights at the end, or the next set , or the set after that.
I learned many years ago speeding in town is utterly pointless, I'm so used to driving at 30 now I barely have to look at the speedo to know what speed I'm doing.
As I don't speed in 30 limits I've had a clean licence for 20+ years, most of that working as a courier in and out of cities and towns on a daily basis, a guy I worked with had been doing the job for 7 months and managed to rack up 9 points
I'm not trying to be holier than thou, just worked out it was pointless , 23 sets of traffic lights including pelican crossings in a 6 mile stretch locally to me, no chance of saving any time while the roads are so congested either, I'm sure nobody works any more judging by all the cars on the road at 11am
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