I attended a Naughty Drivers' course this week. They are Zoom activities these days – 9 naughty speeders and a man in a garden shed working from home. It was quite interesting and almost worth the 2 ½ hour interruption to your day should you be caught doing 34mph in a 30mph speed zone.
There was a lot of refreshing of the Highway Code, which has been updated quite a few times since I learnt to drive in the 1970s. There have been some very important changes this year regarding the hierarchy of road users, including what to do when driving/negotiating a horse-drawn carriage at a roundabout. We did not discuss this particular update, but spent considerable time looking at how to tell what the actual speed limit is in various situations and how to drive more safely and within the law when being hassled by other road users who are determined to make you move faster. Going all the way round a roundabout to escape them is not a solution that I had thought of but might be a useful tactic as long as there is not a horse drawn carriage cluttering up the junction. An unlikely scenario, but possible.
We watched a video showing how a car at travelling at 31 mph is still travelling at 8mph when it hits an obstacle that a car at 30mph manages to stop before. Something to do with physics. Luckily the demo used an airfield and a pile of boxes, not a busy road and pushchair – but it made us all think. That 3 or 4 miles over the speed limit could make a considerable difference in an accident. We all promised to spread the message amongst our friends - the difference between an impact at 30mph and 35mph really can be life or death for a pedestrian.
We were then tasked to think about when and why we speed and how we will change our behavior. The trainer was good at not putting people on the spot or making them feel uncomfortable, but we were invited to share our action plans. I went all shy because I could hardly reveal the reason that I sometimes fail to take account of my speed. It is not that I am in a hurry/disagree with the limit on any road (one participant's defence)/am stressed by a hard day at work/do not think it is important. There is a very simple reason why I do not check my speedometer more than I do - I am distracted. Not by kids bickering in the back of the car on the school run/social media/my phone/a talkative passenger. I am distracted because driving is a time when I ring methods in my head. I do not have a blue line on the seat to learn, but I do visualise ringing something and follow an internal dialogue. That takes up brain space and one should focus attention on the driving not what happens at the half lead in Sandal – it starts off all Oxford and then pouf – jumps to another place bell for the last half of the lead, where it conveniently remains until the next half lead….. But what does that look like in reality?
Sorry, it will have to wait until I have a bath because I am driving and next time I get caught there will be points on my license and I do not want points on my license.
I assume that it is permissible to ring and bathe at the same time?
Another thing I have resolved to do is, if Bat out of Hell or something similar comes on the radio, I will turn the volume down not up, because there is nothing like a rock anthem to encourage speeding. They have done the research to prove it.
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