My Speed Awareness Course

I was zapped traveling at 53mph in a 50mph zone and given the option of 3 penalty points and a £60 fine or attending a 4.5 hr and £85 speed awareness course with no penalty points.

Last Friday myself and 20 others attended an unexpectedly excellent speed awareness course. We weren't treated like offenders and we weren't patronised. It made me wonder why every driver wasn't forced to attend such a course at 10 year intervals to refresh their knowledge. I, for example, couldn't  recognise half of the the traffic signs we were tested on. I was also a complete ignoramus with things like reaction times and stopping distances.

Did you, for example, know that ABS breaks DO NOT decrease your stopping distance? They simply help you to steer whilst fully depressing the breaks.

The bits I enjoyed the most, however, were the films. Below, in my view, is the most powerful one, a TV ad from 2001. And here's the deal: play the film repeatedly. Take notes. Each time you watch it afresh, take new notes. There are around 5 observation to disentangle. Now watch...

Let me give you the first observation. See the kid bouncing the basket ball? Any idea why he is even included in the film? Answer: to give you an indication of the driver's reaction time between seeing the kid and depressing the breaks - two bounces of the ball. There are four more observations. Share these and any more you can find as a comment below. Your reward? Access to £1,000 worth of EthOS projects.

Post Script:
You might be interested to know that after watching this film we were asked to roll play. Some of us were the onlookers, others were the driver, another three were the judge and I... I was the parents of the dead child. I had to share my emotions with the others. I got as far as saying there should have been a pelican crossing before I choked up, unable to speak any more.

Has this course slowed my driving down? Not really, I was never a fast driver. But it has made me drive more appropriately for the conditions.