Speed awareness course

Pennylane

Received my first ever fine for speeding. Offered a speed awareness course. First time I tried to book by phone. Spent an hour hanging on. Then tried online, put all my details in, refs etc, debit card in hand to pay and it says there are no classroom venues available. Rang again went through it all again and they could offer no venues. Suggested I do online course which I don’t want to do (not very techie) or accept the points and pay a fine which I don’t want to do.

Rang again today, still no venues. Apparently “due to covid” there are not enough tutors who want to do classroom sessions!  I have to ring again next week and see if they have released a venue!  The 28 days I have to book this is rapidly disappearing and it’s not my fault. 

What a dreadful system.  I have also emailed the Police twice whose name is on top of the original letter but they just send me links to online booking etc which of course are no good if there are no venues available. 

giraffe69

My other half as just done an online awareness course and very little techiness was required. However still using Covid as their excuse is a bit much!

SpudGunPaul

Pennylane said:

Received my first ever fine for speeding. Offered a speed awareness course. First time I tried to book by phone. Spent an hour hanging on. Then tried online, put all my details in, refs etc, debit card in hand to pay and it says there are no classroom venues available. Rang again went through it all again and they could offer no venues. Suggested I do online course which I don’t want to do (not very techie) or accept the points and pay a fine which I don’t want to do.

Rang again today, still no venues. Apparently “due to covid” there are not enough tutors who want to do classroom sessions!  I have to ring again next week and see if they have released a venue!  The 28 days I have to book this is rapidly disappearing and it’s not my fault. 

What a dreadful system.  I have also emailed the Police twice whose name is on top of the original letter but they just send me links to online booking etc which of course are no good if there are no venues available. 

Just do the online course they'll send you links same as booking one. You've no right to a course and if you time out it's £100 and three points as a minimum, they could send you straight to court. 

Aretnap

If you can click a link on your smartphone then sit in front of it looking vaguely interested for a couple of hours then you're techie enough to do the online course.

Alanp

Also make sure you have nobody in the room with you as that’s an instant fail…( when you do the online course).

facade

giraffe69 said:

My other half as just done an online awareness course and very little techiness was required. However still using Covid as their excuse is a bit much!

Despite what The Government would have you think, Covid hasn't gone away. Hospital admissions are rising and so are positive tests, which is worrying when you realise that very few people bother with tests nowadays as Covid has been cured.....

Online courses are the future anyway for simple tasks.

TooManyPoints

Despite what The Government would have you think, Covid hasn't gone away. Hospital admissions are rising and so are positive tests, which is worrying when you realise that very few people bother with tests nowadays as Covid has been cured..... 

Like all earlier SARS viruses, SARS-Cov-19 will never go away. It is now endemic in almost all countries worldwide. The question is, what is the purpose of testing now? What do you suggest people who test positive are to do? What other endemic and potentially fatal diseases are they to test for?

As far as numbers go, there are about 8,000 people in hospital with Covid currently, of whom about 170 are in ventilation beds. The daily deaths (seven day average) are around 55. So this is probably in line with any of the other endemic respiratory diseases. So the question you might answer is, with all that in mind, how long do you propose “Covid precautions” continue?

But back to the OP:

I may be wrong but I doubt you’ll get any in-person course appointments anywhere. This has nothing to do with Covid but is simple economics. The course providers have realised that it’s far more lucrative to run them online rather than pay to hire venues.

baser999

Are you looking out of area for your course, or simply hoping to book the one ‘at the end of the road?’ 

Mutton_Geoff

Pennylane said:

Received my first ever fine for speeding. Offered a speed awareness course. First time I tried to book by phone. Spent an hour hanging on. Then tried online, put all my details in, refs etc, debit card in hand to pay and it says there are no classroom venues available. Rang again went through it all again and they could offer no venues. Suggested I do online course which I don’t want to do (not very techie) or accept the points and pay a fine which I don’t want to do.

Rang again today, still no venues. Apparently “due to covid” there are not enough tutors who want to do classroom sessions!  I have to ring again next week and see if they have released a venue!  The 28 days I have to book this is rapidly disappearing and it’s not my fault. 

What a dreadful system.  I have also emailed the Police twice whose name is on top of the original letter but they just send me links to online booking etc which of course are no good if there are no venues available. 

If you are tech savvy enough to have been posting here for 15 years, I think you'll be OK opening a Zoom link.

MikeJXE

Pennylane said:

Received my first ever fine for speeding. Offered a speed awareness course. First time I tried to book by phone. Spent an hour hanging on. Then tried online, put all my details in, refs etc, debit card in hand to pay and it says there are no classroom venues available. Rang again went through it all again and they could offer no venues. Suggested I do online course which I don’t want to do (not very techie) or accept the points and pay a fine which I don’t want to do.

Rang again today, still no venues. Apparently “due to covid” there are not enough tutors who want to do classroom sessions!  I have to ring again next week and see if they have released a venue!  The 28 days I have to book this is rapidly disappearing and it’s not my fault. 

What a dreadful system.  I have also emailed the Police twice whose name is on top of the original letter but they just send me links to online booking etc which of course are no good if there are no venues available. 

My friend had one of them and the only option was online via zoom. He isn't tech savvy and was petrified for over a month, couldn't sleep etc.

Anyway it came and went and he said it wasn't what he thought it would be and he was relieved at the outcome 

fatbelly

I actually enjoyed the face to face course I did but if I had to do another one, I'd happily do it online.

It did actually make me more aware of the limits and how to read the road to work out what the limit was