Learning the truth about speeding

IT had been a long day. Having set off from my mother’s house in Ireland at 8am that morning to catch the ferry to Scotland, I had been driving for about seven hours when I hit a diversion in North Yorkshire.

Now, just coming out of Bedale, I was, at last, less than half an hour from home. Clocking the national speed limit sign just ahead and keen to get home in time for a school meeting at 7pm, I put my foot down.

That was then I saw the policeman standing on the pavement, pointing his speed gun directly at me. I was pulled over. He had caught me driving at 38mph in a 30mph limit.

There was, of course, no defence. Because I knew that if a child had run onto the road and I had hit him, explaining that I was late for a meeting would be a particularly pathetic explanation.

Held up by a diversion? A long drive? As excuses go, all were pretty lame. What could I say? It was wrong.

It was, in my favour, a first offence. Although, if I’m honest, this was just the first time in 30 years of driving that I have been caught. As a result, the policeman who took down my details said I’d have the chance to take a speed awareness course.

This turned out to be lucky for me, and not because it meant I could avoid a fine and three points on my licence. The course truly opened my eyes to the potential consequences of speeding and has, as a result, made me a better and safer driver.

I was one of 22 slightly sheepish looking drivers who turned up for the four-hour speed awareness course, run by the AA’s Drive Tech, which is contracted by police forces all over the country to help rehabilitate “marginal speeders” like me, clocked doing between 35 and 39mph in a 30 limit.

Given the option of paying a fine and taking the points or attending a course like this, most drivers sign up for the course. For Drive Tech, which now has a turnover of £18,000,000, business appears to be booming.

Made up of five women and 17 men, of various ages and backgrounds, our group, which met in a hotel in Harrogate, included lorry and van drivers, pensioners and those in their early 20s.

I had expected it to be a humiliating, confessional experience. But, thankfully, the whole tone of our session was enlightening and educational, not at all patronising.

We took part in multiple choice quizzes, using hand-held electronic devices, with overall answers projected onto a whiteboard for everyone to see, but with no one individually singled out.

The results highlighted worrying pockets of ignorance over everything from speed and stopping distances to the meaning of various road signs. A few of the group had taken the rigorous driving theory test, introduced eight years ago.

But the rest of us had been handed our driving licences after being asked to explain one or two road signs and answer a question on road safety. And while most people in the room claimed they had read the Highway Code in recent years, I wasn’t convinced.

I haven’t looked at it since I took my test all those years ago. “Why would you?” I said to the person next to me. But that was before I realised just how many changes there have been - up to 40 in some editions - since.

Now the huge gaps in our knowledge, highlighted by our test results, were being projected onto the screen at the front of the room for all to see.

Most worryingly, some thought the speed limit on a dual carriageway was 40mph, one thought it was 60mph on a motorway. And, when asked the national speed limit on a rural single carriageway, answers ranged from 30mph to 70mph.

It was real-life stories of accidents, complete with harrowing films and photographs from the scenes, that caused the room to fall silent.

This was where paying attention to those speed limits, stopping distances and road signs from the text books suddenly, in hindsight, became so vitally important.

Our course tutors explained the effect on the human body when hit at different speeds. Those of us who may have thought going a measly couple of miles over the speed limit makes no difference soon learnt it can mean the difference between life and death.

At 30mph, someone will roll off the bonnet of the car while the stopping distance allows the driver to come to a halt promptly.

But at 34mph and above, the victim will be thrown into the air and is likely to be run over again in the road before the car comes to a stop.

At 20mph, 99% of pedestrians survive being hit, at 30mph the figure is 80%. But with speeds of 35mph, there is a 50% chance the victim will die. Around 90% of pedestrians die in a 40mph impact.

These statistics were soon brought to life as we followed the story of a 14-year-old boy, mucking about, as 14-year-olds do, with his friends as they walked along a footpath in a quiet village.

Suddenly, for no apparent reason, he ran out into the road. A driver doing 35mph in the 30mph limit swerved to avoid him, we could see the skid marks in the road. But her speed and stopping distance meant she hit him.

The boy died. Although he had run into the road, she was speeding. That made her culpable.

Next, as soothing classical music played in the background, we watched an eerie, slow motion film from the air of Britain’s worst ever motorway accident in 1991, when ten people died and 25 were seriously injured in a 51-vehicle pile-up on the M4.

It all started when one driver fell asleep at the wheel and strayed into the central reservation. With average speeds of 70mph in foggy conditions, other drivers couldn’t act quickly enough to avoid the accident and pile-up which ensued.

We witnessed it unfold slowly, as one car after the other was caught in the chaos. But in reality what we were watching, from beginning to end, lasted just 19 seconds.

There are seven people killed and 70 seriously injured in road accidents every day, we were told. Only four per cent of accidents are on motorways, with most occurring in urban areas.

Perhaps surprisingly, most deaths on the roads are in rural areas. This is because of the time it takes for emergency services to get to the scenes of accidents.

There is some good news, though. Thanks to increased safety measures and awareness, the number of road deaths has fallen by half since the 1930s, even though there are now ten times as many vehicles on the roads.

Public attitudes to driving offences, the course tutors pointed out, have changed over the past 40 years. Once, people were more tolerant of drink drivers. Now it is socially unacceptable. Attitudes towards speeding appear to be slowly changing now too.

In the space of four hours, attitudes were changing in our group too. After our tutors had spelled out just how many lives appear to have been saved by the introduction of 20mph speed limits in some town centre areas one of our group, a van driver, started arguing passionately for a blanket 20mph limit in all town centres.

“If it saves just one life, it’s worth it,” he said. There were a few nods of agreement.

Speed awareness schemes like these might not be for everyone. But the statistics seem to suggest they work. While one in four people who get speeding points re-offend, only one in 12 go on to speed again after attending a course.

At the end of our session, the tutors asked us all to rate ourselves as drivers, from one to ten, with zero being poor, five average and ten excellent.

I was one of just five who felt we were below average. Tellingly, 17 of the group felt they were way above average, which seems statistically - particularly among a group of drivers who have been caught speeding - unlikely.

Too many people, I suspect, think they are better drivers than they are.

I, certainly, watch my speedometer much more carefully, particularly in a 30mph limit, where I often think of that 14-year-old boy who ran out into the road unexpectedly. Because I know that driver could so easily have been me. And that boy could have been my son.