The Great Speed Awareness Course Scam

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  • James_N
    James_N Posts: 1,089
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    Although there is an opportunity for attendees too. You're going to be meeting lawbreakers of the opposite sex who may be quite fanciable and clearly not bound by moral norms, so a bit of wa-hey may be possible.

    If so inclined, you may meet members of the same sex who are quite fanciable too ....
    Under no circumstances may any part of my postings be used, quoted, repeated, transferred or published by any third party in ANY medium outside of this website without express written permission. Thank you.
  • westernpromise
    westernpromise Posts: 4,833 Forumite
    I got one of these for doing 36 in a 30. The cruise control didn't work downhill. I was OK with it though as this was in 2013 and the last brush I had with traffic laws was 26 years previously. So it goes.
  • Car_54
    Car_54 Posts: 8,182
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    The OP's three-page rant, complete with its repeated upper case catch phrase ("MULTI-MILLION POUND SCAM") looks at first glance like a classic conspiracy theory, although to be fair his grammar and punctuation are better than most.



    However, there is no conspiracy. I don't believe he's told us anything that isn't in the public domain, except maybe Admiral's alleged U-turn. So what exactly was the point?
  • westernpromise
    westernpromise Posts: 4,833 Forumite
    James_N wrote: »
    If so inclined, you may meet members of the same sex who are quite fanciable too ....
    That is indeed true!
  • HWG
    HWG Posts: 79 Forumite
    So all I have to do to avoid this wicked, insidious illuminati scam is to remain within the speed limit? Deal.
  • System
    System Posts: 178,077
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    Its amazing that despite doing 2000+ miles a week for almost quarter of a century all over the UK I've yet to have to pay any money for this alleged scam even though in Scotland the speed limits for single carriageways and dual carriageways is different for my vehicle than in England and Wales.
  • Johno100
    Johno100 Posts: 5,259
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    Tarambor wrote: »
    Its amazing that despite doing 2000+ miles a week for almost quarter of a century all over the UK I've yet to have to pay any money for this alleged scam even though in Scotland the speed limits for single carriageways and dual carriageways is different for my vehicle than in England and Wales.

    So you've never been caught, well done.:T
  • westernpromise
    westernpromise Posts: 4,833 Forumite
    I never speed intentionally, but it does happen by accident.
  • unholyangel
    unholyangel Posts: 16,863
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    Yes, OP is totally right. Prior to these SACs you wouldn't be caught speeding, you wouldn't be given a FPN or fine, you wouldn't receive points on your licence, you wouldn't have increased premiums due to your risk increasing as someone who breaks the speed limits.

    Totally a money making venture and not at all trying to teach drivers stuff they should know like the back of their hand.

    :shhh::shhh:
    You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means - Inigo Montoya, The Princess Bride
  • Knapper
    Knapper Posts: 76
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    If these courses can stop 1 person from causing a road related incident then its worth it? Right?



    There's the rub. Road related incidents are not caused by speeding. They are always caused by poor drivers or pedestrians unable to drive properly or assess conditions and pay attention.


    If a dumb pedestrian or cyclist or motorbike rider is going to step or ride out in front of a moving car then an accident is going to happen. The notion that driving slower would help, is frankly an unending bit of kidology because clearly 20mph would then be better than 30mph and 10mph would be better than 20mph and then 5mph and so on. So are we all to drive at 5mph everywhere ?


    Nope it's a nonsense.


    Speed does NOT kill. Not now, not ever.


    Neither does the speed of a bullet kill.


    What kills is a person firing a bullet at another person.


    What causes accidents and fatalities is people not being in control of their vehicle or paying attention or 100 other similar reasons, but the speed is not one of them. Speed might affect the severity of the outcome but it's not the cause and if anyone actually cared about reducing the number of accidents the money and effort would go towards educating both pedestrians and drivers in their respective environments. Focussing on speed is frankly just stupid. The old codger who can barely see and who can't turn his neck when reversing is far more a road accident risk than a capable driver doing 5mph over the limit.


    The NSACs about half way through play this incredibly lame piece of video with Tiff Needell. It is utterly ludicrous. They put a cardboard cut-out just at the outer edge of a car's braking/stopping distance for 30mph and then demonstrate driving at 30mph and braking and sure enough the car stops just short of the cut-out. Tiff then ramps the car up to 35mph but DOES NOT move the cut-out. So now the cut-out is within the 35mph stopping distance. Guess what? Tiff hits the cut-out. Shock !


    This goes on. He increases his speed and each time the cut-out stays located within the original 30mph stopping distance and of course he hits the cut-out with increasing force.
    The whole thing is utterly ludicrous. What they are doing is a bit of kidology, trying to show people how fast you are going before you stop. At the end of the day, if you are going to place a cut-out within the car's stopping distance then of course the car is going to hit the cut-out. The speed is irrelevant.
    The solution, if they really cared about finding one, lies in making changes to ensure that cut-out, or rather pedestrian, is NOT in front of a moving car in the first place.


    I noticed too that the course opened with a whole bunch of statistics about the number of road casualties nationwide each year broken down by severity. They made no attempt whatsoever to explain the nature of those crashes and what the causes were, whether drivers or pedestrians, mobile phone users, drink drivers and so on. But people are sat on a Speed Awareness Course so the psychological trick floats through the air that this must all be a result of speeding, which of course is totally not true. Much of the course ran along a similar line, psychological nonsense that really didn't stack up at all.


    In the end it was a 4 hour spiel, death by powerpoint with joviality thrown in where possible to keep the saps happy.


    The sadness of it all is that there was an opportunity there to focus AWAY from the issue of speed and more towards being an all round better driver, how to better assess conditions, how to anticipate, what to anticipate, what changes to make in different situations and so on. That is what is really needed.
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