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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jh ... xhome.html

Drivers to be let off penalties in U-turn over speed cameras
BY Shaun Connolly
(Filed: 02/05/2004)


Motorists caught on speed cameras will be able to avoid receiving penalty points by paying to join special classes.

Ministers are to introduce a national scheme that will allow offenders to bypass the mandatory £60 fine and three-point endorsement by attending a "speed awareness" course, at a cost of £85.

The Government is concerned by the public backlash at the number of motorists automatically losing their licences and facing higher insurance rates because of speed camera prosecutions.

More than a million drivers were caught by speed cameras in 2001, the last year for which the Home Office has figures.

A number of different types of speed awareness classes are being tested in 12 areas. More than 25,000 drivers have opted for the £85 course in Lancashire alone since a pilot project started there in May 2001.

The plan will be gradually introduced nationwide over the next 12 months once transport officials and police have agreed on which course is best.

At present, the pilot schemes vary widely. Drivers in Lancashire spend half their six-hour class on the road, although in Northampton they do only a three-hour theory session.

A Department of Transport official said: "We are keen to do this. We know that drink-driving courses bring home the consequences of drink-driving very effectively and these do the same for speed.

"We are talking to the Association of Chief Police Officers about a national scheme. It needs to be consistent across all areas and we need to look at the ingredients. We will be doing this over the next few months.

"The whole point of speed cameras is to save people's lives. We don't want the money, we want to keep people alive."

The move was welcomed by motoring groups, who hoped that the scheme would not be restricted to first-time offenders or people caught going just over the limit, as some of the pilot courses have been.

Edmund King, a spokesman for the RAC Foundation, said: 'It would be much better to give everyone caught a go at this. It is also a bit silly to limit it to people doing no more than 35mph in a 30mph zone. Surely it makes more sense to allow those doing 40mph or more on to the courses as they need the help more?

"If this is really about re-educating the driver and not about raising revenue from speed cameras then the formula needs to be flexible. Obviously, if someone is two or three times over the speed limit then there has to be some kind of cut off point."

Richard Brunstrom, the chief constable of North Wales, who pioneered the use of speed cameras, also welcomed the initiative. "At present speed cameras are very black and white. Either nothing happens or you get three points and a fine.

"We obviously need a national scheme that will give drivers who are caught for the first time the option of a formal warning and retraining, as we do for careless driving now.

"We will be unveiling a national scheme in the near future which will take a lot of the heat out of the issue."

Gina Bradshaw, 59, a clerical worker from Great Houghton, Northamptonshire, took one of the courses when she was caught doing 34mph in a 30mph zone last summer.

"I thought it would be a bit of a joke beforehand, just an easy way to get out of the three penalty points by going back to school for a few hours," she said.

"Instead, it opened my eyes and changed the way I drive and the way I see other road users. It makes you realise how many stupid people there are out there and how dangerous they are."

Home Office figures released last week reveal that 1,411,300 drivers were fined for speeding after being caught by road side cameras in 2002. That was double the total of 699,400 two years previously.

In December, the Conservatives announced that, if elected, they would retain penalty points only for speed camera offences at sites where there was a risk of death from speeding.

The plans were abandoned last month, however, after a backlash from road safety and motoring groups. They claimed that penalty points remained an essential deterrent and that fines would be insufficient to stop richer drivers from breaking the speed limit.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Do they actually, though? From what I've heard, they're away to pay £25 and avoid losing your licence.



Right... But will it actually slow her down? The first statement from the DoT official seems to imply the course will do this. But from this lady's comments, it seems that it's perhaps improved her observation, but isn't slowing her down. Which may mean the course is a good thing, but it certainly invalidates the official's comments...



What are anyone's views on this? Were they right to change their minds? I'd certainly support the abolition of points for being caught by scams, because I think it could herald the end of their use, which would certainly be a good thing!

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-mike[F]
Caught in the rush of the crowd, lost in a wall of sound..

In principle a good idea, but I think that it misses the fundimental point, speed is not factor in the majority of accidents. Bad driving covers a multitude of faults. These need to be nipped in the bud straight away.

In Health & Safety employers are required to give Necessary Information, Instruction, Training & Supervision to employees especially if operating plant or working in a hazardous / high risk occupation.


How does this compare with driving ???


Information (Only government Information not IAM, RoSPA etc):

Highway code, Public safety messages (THINK campaign etc) - Some good information, some pretty bad, misleading or downright lies.


Instruction & Training:

What level are driving instructors ? As far as I am aware you must hold a driving licence for three years and be over 25, no requirement to hold any form of advanced driver qualfication !! So at worst case we effectively have the blind leading the blind - Also driving schools are commercial outfits, the best students are the worst drivers = more lessons & more money made from them. Take the lady from driving school 30+ ? tests, how many lessons all with the same instructor. She did eventually pass, now working for BBC local radio, and has written off three cars in as many years. At some point her instructor should have said 'You are too dangerous to be a driver, give up your licence'.

In New Zealand if you want paid tuition you go to the local traffic division. Not everyone takes it BUT at least those that do pay for tuition get taught by professional to a high standard. This might offend some driving instructors, but how many times have you seen a learner at the worst junction in town in rush hour, with barely basic control of their car and thought 'what on earth is their instructor doing taking them here at this time ?'


Supervision:

Now that cameras are watching the roads, traffic officers are being moved onto 'real' crimes, some traffic divisions are being scaled down or amalgamated into other parts of the police, so less real supervision is actually happening.

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Gordon Brown saying I got the country into it's current economic mess so I'll get us out of it is the same as Bomber Harris nipping over to Dresden and offering to repair a few windows.

Chaos, panic and disorder - my work here is done.

http://www.wildcrafts.co.uk

I think the message is getting through that you should only really learn to drive with an ADI - these are people who have undertaken more stringent training and are best able to teach new drivers.

However - yes, theoretically, anyone could charge to teach someone else to drive.



Pretty rarely, to be honest! I know that my driving instructor never took me anywhere that I wouldn't be able to cope with (although maybe I was 'naturally gifted' and able to do in-town driving after two lessons..) and I don't often see learners out of their depth. (Mind you, I don't often see learners on the route that I drive most often..)

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-mike[F]
Caught in the rush of the crowd, lost in a wall of sound..

Or publicly attacked at a press conference...

Anyone else see this as being a major climbdown by Brunstrom? This is the man who labelled speeding motorists "antisocial thugs" and said drifting over a speed limit was like "drifting a knife into someone's back".

Has he been on the "perfectly safe" heroin?

Great post, but I think you missed the overarching consideration: "safety culture". Of course the methods you outline contribute substantially to the safety culture.

I see safety culture as the road safety holy grail - the factor that gave us in the UK the safest roads in the World. This of course, leads us to a direct solution for improving road safety - we need to feed our safety culture. I keep hammering away at this at the highest levels and I'm seeing indications that the point is finally sinking in. Here's what we need to do:

* Appoint a clever psycologist to work with expert drivers and design a psychological questionaire to measure our safety culture.

* Sample 1,000 drivers at three month intervals to plot changes in the implied average national safety culture.

* Put in place policies and publicity to affect appropriate indicators within the average safety culture.

* Sit back and watch road deaths fall.

It's so easy - yet few realise the importance.

Need proof? Just compare our road safety performance to Belgian drivers. Similar roads. Similar vehicles. Similar enforcement style. But the Belgian roads are 2.5 times more dangerous. The difference is that the Belgian safety culture is crap.

Want the good news? Our safety culture is crap too, just not as crap as the Belgian's. But the fact that our safety culture is crap means we have oodles of room for improvement.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Not true: Since the Road Traffic Act 1988,in order to charge for teaching, you must either be on the Register of Approved Driving Instructors, or hold a Trainee Licence issued in accordance with the Act.

The DSA site explains what is required to become an ADI. From enquiries I've made, if you pass all the tests first time, it can be a 9-12 month process and costs in the region of £2000 + exam and registration fees. So it's not quite as simple as sticking a "Numpty School of Driving" sign on top of your car.


Kaz

Am I missing something here? I do not see this as a climbdown at all, but rather as a further toughening up of the "Speed Kills" culture.

If I am reading this correctly, then it suggests to me that even the generally accepted 10%+2 mph allowance will be done away with, meaning that you will have to attend this compulsory re-education course if you are caught by a camera travelling as little as 1 mph over the limt. The current 10%+2 will probably still be the guideline for prosecution/penalty points, but instead of, as now, nothing happening if you go through a camera at 31mph, in future it will cost you £85 and half a day at a training course!

Then, think of this; What happens the SECOND time you get caught at 31mph? You have obviously not been successfully re-educated, so no doubt you will face being prosecuted!

This whole thing sounds to me like a way of introducing a ZERO tolerance policy by the back door!

Regards,

Biker-Russ

I'm with Biker-Russ on this. I exchanged a few e-mails with Thames Valley Police about this, and they are quite up front about pinging everyone they catch between 31 and 36mph and sending them on a course. They have another, IMO more useful, course for idiots going really OTT - the type who'd never have got a fixed penalty anyway as their speed justified a trip to the magistrates and a really big fine. I think you need to be doing about 60 in a 30 zone to be sent on this one. Of course, that leaves everyone doing 37 to 59mph with the usual 3 points and £60 fine. So, to a large extent, this does seem to be back door zero tolerance, as they're now pinging drivers who in the past have been ignored.

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Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein

Indeedy. However, that will backfire too as there are plenty of people aware of the tolerance guidelines and have avoided prosecution until now as a result (like a smug colleague of mine who likes to think he knows the law and reminds me, every time I step on my high horse about safespeed, that he hasn't been 'done' yet - notwithstanding the fact that I haven't yet either) who will suddenly feel very peeved when they too join the masses of safe drivers who have had their pockets dipped.

I would be all for sending everyone caught up to 10 mph (or maybe 15%) over the limit on one of these courses. If the speed limits were set sensibly to start with.

In general, I applaud the idea that speeding motorists could elect to go on remedial training. It is disgraceful that 1,411,300 drivers have been caught breaking the law, and an awful indictment about how lawless the country has become. It doesn’t surprise me, though, that the Conservatives are polarising the matter – they are desperate for votes.

The cost of the courses is not much more than a fine, which is small anyway, considering the danger these drivers expose us to. It is good that the offenders bypass the mandatory £60 fine and three-point endorsement, but insurance companies will ask if you have been convicted of speeding offences, and put up your rates anyway, whether you have points or not. They are bound to do that, because their profits depend of accurately assessing risk. They have found that speeders are a greater risk, and put up the cost accordingly. Don’t expect any change there.

This is good for me, though, because insurers reduce the rates accordingly for lawful drivers. So, although speeding drivers will still pay high rates if they are convicted, they will not be banned unless they drive very badly indeed.

Edmund King of the RAC thinks heavy offenders need more help. The kind of help they need is a stiff fine and lots of points, in my opinion. However, marginal offences should be treated flexibly, that is true. The faster you go, the more it should hurt. I think that the threshold for a ban has to be set at the right level, because we don’t want very bad speeders to avoid a ban in this way. After all, whole point of speed cameras is to save people's lives. We don't want the very bad speeders on the road at all.

The Gina Bradshaw case is a good one to bring up. It looks like she has wised up that, no matter how she drives, it is all the factors that count, and now perhaps she understands why the maximum limit is there. This is a good thing.

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I stole this .sig

The first quote, "antisocial thugs", might be close to the truth. After all, many anti-social acts do not endanger the public as much as speeding motorists. The second quote, "drifting a knife into someone's back", is bit silly, although I can see the point of what he is doing. A large proportion of drivers cruise around "thumb in bum, mind in neutral", driving at the "speed which feels right to them". Of course, the "speed which feels right to them" varies from driver to driver, is not related to skill or training, and is very often not a "safe speed".

I suppose he's trying to get these boneheads to think while they drive, which you should really do whether you are for or against cameras. All drivers should think while they drive, if only to avoid tickets!

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I stole this .sig

It's no longer true to say that maximum limits are set according to prescribed guidelines. These still exist, and still mention the 85th percentile, but councils don't have to refer changes up to the DTp anymore, and have pretty much free rein to lower speed limits wherever they feel fit, regardless of the physical characteristics of the roads.

So we need to change our understanding of why maximum limits are there - forget safety, it's all political now. And you wonder why people lose respect for posted limits?

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Keep right on to the end of the road ...

Actually, it would seem that most drivers "feels right" speed is actually the safe one, as driving remains relatively safe, considering the amount of exposure we have. You are FORTY TIMES more likely to die from a smoking related disease, even if you are a non-smoker!

The biggest problem at the moment is that we are taking the "thumb up bum, gazing out of the window" driver and turning him into a "thumb up bum, gazing at speedo" driver, which makes him more dangerous.


Yes we should be making them think more, but not about things that have only a minor bearing on their crashing risk. I'd prefer we made them think about the really important things, like looking where they are going and anticipating other drivers actions. Meanwhile lets get enforcement targeted more specifically at the people who cause all the fatals - drink drivers, drugged drivers, joyriders, thieves etc.

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CSCP Latin for beginners...
Ticketo ergo sum : I scam therefore I am!

So, you say that 140,000 non-smokers die from smoking related disease each year in the UK. Please give me a URL that backs this, or stop trying to make me laugh

Have you checked out http://www.roadpeace.org/ to find out how dangerous our roads are? I agree we need to target specifically at the people who cause all the fatals - drink drivers, drugged drivers, joyriders, thieves and, most of all, the thumb in bum brigade who outnumber the rest by 10 to 1 but are just as reckless in thier own mindless little way.

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I stole this .sig

I sincerely ask how, other than by political agreement, should we reach consensus on what and where the limits should be? It seems to me that the process is highly political because it has so many stakeholders - how could it not be political? Should the Queen decide!

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I stole this .sig

But the politics is about deterring the use of private motor vehicles, and promoting "modal shift", not about safety.

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

Well, we could try listening to the experts who used to have some sway in this - the guys and gals at the DTp and its predecessors who produced the original guidelines, and worked out the sense of the 85th percentile. It used to be the case that the DTp had to approve limit changes, but this oversight was abolished in the mid-90's, with the result that we see much more low-limit insanity on open country roads that drivers take sod-all notice of unless there's a GATSO or a Talivan there to enforce it.

I'm not saying that councils should have NO say - but the process for change is far too easy, and there appears to be little or no testing of the evidence for change, bar "will it win me votes at the next election". And that is not the best reason to make a change, IMHO.

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Keep right on to the end of the road ...

Sorry, I phrased that wrongly. The point I was making was that forty times as many people die from smoking as die in road accidents, but that this figure is even worse than it seems as it doesn't take into account the fact that most people don't smoke. In other words smoking is much more than forty times more dangerous than driving.

The underlying point being that if it were really all about saving lives not raising money, then the political effort being sunk into speeding enforcement would be much more effective sunk into stopping smoking.


Fatal accidents show a dis-proportionately high incidence of drivers falling into the above illegal groups, therefore I feel that is where enforcement should be targeted for it to have most effect. Similarly, speeding doesn't figure large in the causality of fatal crashes by comparison with carelessness and inattention, so concentrating our efforts on speeding is to wilfully neglect the things that might actually do some good. This is clearly reflected in the current trends in fatalities.

And I totally refute your theory that targetting speeders makes drivers more attentive. It might make some of them more attentive to speed limits, but it can only make them less attentive in terms of hazard perception.

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CSCP Latin for beginners...
Ticketo ergo sum : I scam therefore I am!