Education drive to win over speeding motorists

If you type ‘speed camera’ into the internet search engine Google, the top result isn’t linked to road safety or the authorities – it is a website offering a legal helpline to avoid speed camera fines.

This small survey encapsulates the ongoing battle for hearts and minds when it comes to controlling speeding on Britain’s roads.

While the authorities point to the lives saved by using camera technology to ensure drivers keep to safe speeds, particularly in urban areas, they are attacked by motorists – sometimes literally – as a crude revenue raising measure.

To combat the growing rift between drivers and the authorities, an increasing number of motorists are being offered ‘speed workshop’ courses instead of receiving points on their licence.

One such course is run by the Northamptonshire Safety Camera Partnership and is aimed at drivers who have only slightly exceeded the speed limit, normally travelling at about 35 mph in a 30 mph zone.

Having recently been flashed by a camera myself doing just that, I was offered the chance to take part in one of their courses. So I arrived at the course venue, Northamptonshire County Cricket Club, for a three-hour speed awareness session after paying £60 for the course, instead of taking a similar fine and three penalty points.

The 10 other people on the course were from many different backgrounds, from housewives to taxi drivers and lorry drivers.

Most were over 30 and had many years of motoring experience and while we waited to start, their views mirrored those of the general population.

Making money

“It’s just a way of making money,” said Chris from Northampton. “There are people on the road who are much more dangerous. After all, I was only doing 36 mph.”

Our trainers for the day, Peter and Dennis, provided a friendly welcome that removed much of the chill in the air coming from drivers who were annoyed to lose half a day’s work and £60 to be told how to be safer on the road.

As an introduction, we were given questionnaires, which asked simple questions including the number of deaths on the road each day.

The answer was nine. Each year around 3,000 people are killed and more than 40,000 injured on the UK’s roads. Safety cameras, we were told, are placed at locations with a history of collisions that have resulted in death or serious injury – their sole purpose is to encourage motorists to slow down, thus reducing the risk of having an accident.

This explanation was followed by an ‘icebreaking’ exercise where we discussed how we had been caught speeding.

In my case, I had been driving home late at night after a very long day. I was tired, in a rush to get home and wasn’t really looking at my speed when I sailed passed the camera.

I wasn’t alone. Lapse of concentration was one of the most common reasons, along with distractions such as children, talking to passengers and simply ‘going with the flow of the traffic’.

Several drivers who had been caught by mobile speed cameras said they didn’t know the speed limit at the time they were caught. In a bid to help drivers, speed camera signs at fixed sites in Northamptonshire also include the speed limit.

The location of mobile cameras is listed on the internet each day. As trainer Dennis explained, the idea is to slow drivers down, not to catch them out. There aren’t as many cameras as drivers think either, with less than 100 fixed and mobile cameras in total. One driver on the course estimated there were 1,000 in Northamptonshire.

To test our knowledge of speed limits, we were asked to provide the national speed limits for different types of roads.

Answers

For an urban road, our answers ranged from 20 mph to 40 mph. For a rural road, the answers ranged from 30 mph to 70 mph, while for the motorway, answers were 60 mph and 70 mph.

The correct answers were 30 mph for builtup areas, 60 mph for single carriageways and rural roads, 70 mph for dual carriageways and 70 mph for motorways. The speed limits change for heavy vans, cars towing trailers, goods vehicles and lorries. Dennis explained that lack of knowledge was a common problem. “How can you stick to the speed limits if you don’t know what they are for each road?” he asked.

This includes understanding the restrictions placed on other vehicles. For example, large goods vehicles are limited to 40 mph on single carriageways, which creates long tailbacks of faster vehicles behind them. Few motorists understand that the lorries are simply obeying the law and the drivers are protecting their licences.

Real issue

In our case, recognising a 30 mph limit was the real issue, so he provided some simple techniques for checking, such as the absence of speed repeater signs, street lighting and the signs of a built-up area.

But why is keeping to a 30 mph limit so important? After all, surely driving at 70 mph is more dangerous? Not so, said trainer Peter, as he explained the concept of ‘killing speed’, using video footage and adverts to show how much further a car travels when braking from 35 mph compared to 30 mph. The chances of a fatality rises from 20% in 30 mph collisions to 90% in 40 mph collisions.

And in my case, he pointed out that although there is only 8% of traffic at night, it accounts for 25% of serious injury accidents, which is why speed limits apply at night as well as during the day.

Simple advice for sticking to the speed limit included ‘in town, one gear down’, although in some cases, third gear would be advisable.

The polite, but steady flow of facts and figures that offered a rational explanation for sticking to the speed limit ensured that by the time the course came to an end, there were no dissenting voices in the audience.

We even learned why crossing your hands while steering was dangerous for a number of reasons, not least because in a crash, the airbag would fire your arms into your face at high speed. Everyone had learned something about their driving and about road safety by the end of the morning and to round off the day, drivers were provided with a new Highway Code, which now takes pride of place on my desk, along with a key ring to remind me to stick to the 30 mph limit.

Praise

As we left the event, there was general praise for the course and my fellow speeders were supportive of the efforts the Partnership had made to educate drivers rather than simple punish them. As Dennis said: “Northamptonshire has one of the best road safety records in the country. Staying within the speed limits will help us to keep it. Our only aim is to help reduce road casualties, not to catch you speeding.”

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