True. Charles (Bless him) was banging on about pollution this week whilst visiting Cornwall. He then shot off in his helicopter. 
Well a brief update.
Attended my Speed Awareness Course last week.
Exactly as expected (given I’d already read reviews on the internet before going)
All very nicey nicey pleasant, no patronisation, no horrific videos of pedestrians being mowed down by cars. Eactly as others have stated.
However I did not let this approach blind-side me into thinking this was all a good thing. Throughout the experience I remained indifferent and unemotional and knew that I was still a victim of a multi million pound scam.
A few other participants I think fell for the well crafted presentation nonsense.
In total there were 24 people on the course. 2 presenters.
Each person had paid approx. £90 so they had raked in £2,160 for that 4 hour course which equates to a nice little earner of over £500 per hour. How many jobs do you know that pay that kind of rate !!!
And even with that huge amount of cash for such little time, they didn’t put on any tea or coffee or refreshments. There was only the water machine that was already there in the hotel room they had hired. Drinks had to be bought from the hotel during the single break period.
Overall the course was very deliberately run in a light hearted fun way. After all, this IS a multi million pound business so it’s vital that their customers are kept happy. Right from the off they start the course by saying “ok folks, we absolutely know you don’t want to be here”.
The presenters are sub-contracted, not employees of the private firms operating the lucrative scam. A clever arrangement when you think about it as you can’t really moan and groan to them about the private firms. They are well meaning and amiable chaps with strong backgrounds. . . but . . . none of that sways my understanding that I have been made a victim of this lucrative scam.
There was some very dubious psychological nonsense going on in the course too.
Started with a bunch of statistics about numbers of accidents in the country, broken down by mild, serious, fatal etc. Given people were there for speeding the psychological trick being played there was obvious to anyone keeping their wits and staying detached like myself. The participants simply assume that those statistics are accidents caused by speeding cars, which of course they weren’t. No attempt whatsoever was made by the presenters to classify how many of those accidents were stupid pedestrians or drink/drug drivers and so on.
Then there was a piece of video starring Tiff Needel of past Top Gear and Fifth Gear fame. It was full of kidology, an absolute nonsense.
In the latter parts of the course there were some more interesting aspects. Pictures of roads in which we had to try and spot hazards, quizzing on speed limits and how to identify them. All basic stuff but it seems a few people were clueless about the age old thing about roads with street lights.
Bottom line is that some people will have come away learning something, but I doubt whether anyone will end up driving any differently.
The wider issue is that driving requires us to constantly assess a very wide range of factors. The road conditions, light conditions, type of road, presence of other vehicles, cars, motorbikes, cycles and the presence or not of pedestrians, adults or kids all the time whilst dealing with distractions of music, news on the radio, passengers people talking, our own state of mind and so on. Our speed is a tiny factor in all of this. Very clearly a good attentive driver travelling at 35mph is going to be better equipped to deal with an “event” than say an old codger with failing eyesight not concentrating doing 28mph.
None of this is covered in these courses.
In the end it’s really just “death by powerpoint” to fill out 4 hours. No-one really cares if you drive to the limits or not. They just want as many £90 course candidates as possible.
Such is the world we live in.
If we paid the fine and took the points the money would go straight into the Treasury and thus some of it would find its way into public services. Opting for the course puts the money into the pockets of these parasitic private firms.
In many ways it’s preferable to take the fine as this is such a huge scam, but the increased insurance premiums would rack up over the next 3-5 years so financially you have to opt to be a victim of the scam.
In time, all insurance companies will club together and start asking if people have been on courses. Once they do, this multi-million pound exploitation scam will disappear.
Sooner the better really.
I’m glad you posted your assessment of the course Realist. I myself was victim of the speed camera trap last year doing 38mph in what once was a 40mph zone. I declined from taking the course and accepted the £100 fine plus the three points. Being as I no longer rely on driving to earn a living, I reasoned that it would be unlikely that I would be caught out again. Especially on that particular stretch of road.
You describe the course exactly how I would have imagined it to be, and the irony is; the drivers who blatantly ignore the speed limits by such large amounts and continue to drive recklessly, and are ten times more likely to cause fatal accidents will remain unhindered by the authorities on our roads. While the careful driver that was a victim of entrapment will suffer the consequences of driving safely through what once was a 40mph zone and secretly and overnight reduced to a 30mph zone.
Yes, this is the infuriating point. I was caught by a speed camera doing only a few mph over the posted limit, and it wasn’t intentional; it is quite easy to slip over the limit.
Then, as you say, local councils play about with speed limits (and bus lanes) for, in my opinion, the sole purpose of raising money.
Strange thing with this camera business, came home from Lichfield on Tuesday,driving along the M42 with its variable speed signs showing 60mph,traffic was far from heavy,I’m sure it was done to catch peoples unaware.
Ahhh well . . . . .
Where I live is not far from a stretch of motorway and EVERY morning and EVERY night they switch on the variable rate limit and make it 60mph. I see no end of those new cameras on the SIDE of the gantries flashing unfortunate people who haven’t realised the cameras are there.
On the Speed Awareness Course I mentioned this to the tutors suggesting that they only switch the limits to catch lots of people and make lots of money.
They said NO, that’s not the reason.
They said the reason is . . . . . .
POLUTION !
Apparently lowering everyone’s speed to 60mph generates far less pollution during the morning and evening rush hours and that’s why they do it.
Of course I’m not so dumb as to believe that kind of twaddle!
Yes, it’s rubbish.
The most polluting speed is zero: engines ticking over and no-one going anywhere.
I should imagine that there is little if any difference between 70mph and 60mph.
Prevention is better than cure. A speed limiter and a sat nav which warns you when you are approaching speed cameras is the ideal.
My built in sat-nav is to old to warn me 
but as mentioned previously, I tend to use cruise control whenever possible on motorways, particularly when driving through speed restrictions.
And now, there is a review into the 10% speed ‘buffer zone’.
All drivers are now is cash cows. This has nothing to do with road safety and everything to do with raising money for the police and government. All speedometers exaggerate the speed slightly. My sat nav always tells me I’m going a couple of MPH slower than the speedo says. So my limiter is set to 32 MPH in town which registers as 30 on the sat nav and often 29 MPH on those flashing light things telling you to slow down.
Because of my position in my car, I have to physically duck my head slightly to read the speedo. I would prefer to be a few MPH either way rather than keep doing that. It’s always that moment when you look away that everything comes to a halt. An experienced driver can estimate his/her speed just by the sound of the engine. As you rightly say Jack, motorists are just an easy target, nothing to do with safety.
Not always true - my previous car had one of these constantly variable gearboxes and on occasions you would accelerate but the engine speed actually went down yet the speed increased - it was quite odd at first.
It specified in the car design rules that they must read high but no more than something like 110%, they must never read low.
I judge my speed on how hard I hit the potholes.
Potholes are a cheap version of speed humps.
My speed is determined by the co-driver…(Mrs Fox sitting in the passenger seat)…
Exactly as I found it.
We were even given “advice” from an advanced driving instructor that I seriously doubted.
The advice was not to change down when slowing down preparing to stop,
Change down when preparing to stop?
I just depress the clutch and change into an appropriate gear in case I need to drive off.
Did he mean to go into neutral or just keep slowing down in gear until the engine stalls? 