Variable Speed Limit Ticket - Help.

"Getting back to the OP, to get a speed awareness course you'd need to have been going under 66mph."

Close, but no cigar. You do indeed need to have been travelling under 66 mph.But you actually need to be travelling under 65mph. Speed Awareness Courses are normally offered up to (Limit + 10% + 9mph). So, in a 50 limit, 64 would normally be dealt with by a SAC whilst 65 would see a fixed penalty. A second SAC will not be offered where the offender has done one previously within three years (the dates of the offences being used for the calculation). The exception is that is one of the two has been offered by the Dorset Safety Camera Partnership. Dorset does not participate in the national scheme and an offender who has done a Dorset course may also do another from a different area within three years (and vice versa).

Whilst on the subject, since this is the second thread in the past couple of days where posters have been told incorrectly that they would be going to court, perhaps I could explain the fixed penalty limits. They are normally offered as follows (where a Speed Awareness Course is not appropriate, as above):

Where the limit is 20mph, FP is offered up to 40mph
30mph up to 50mph
40mph up to 65mph
50mph up to 75mph
60mph up to 85mph
70mph up to 95mph

A Fixed penalty will not be offered when three points would take the offender to twelve or more (because he faces a six month ban under the "totting up" rules). However one would be offered if it would take a "New Driver" (one who has passed his first test less than two years before the offence) to six points or more (and so face revocation of his licence), The former can be avoided because it is imposed judiciously by the court and the court has the discretion not to impose it; the latter cannot be avoided because it is imposed administratively by the DVLA and the court has no power to prevent it.