Apparently confidentiality is terrifically important. If someone took a photo and put it on social media it would invalidate all of our courses. So says the man running our Speed Awareness Course. For that reason I won’t write his name, but : there’s a picture of him in his attic where he’s driving like a lunatic. Geddit?
It’s him and another guy, they do an hour and a half each of presenting a bunch of slides in a PowerPoint. The voiceovers are human and the graphics is CGI not yet AI, so I’m able to focus without rage.
I drove at 35 on a straight empty road at night. I was too tired to make my primary scan the sides of the road and my secondary scan the road itself. I made the mistake of prioritising looking at the road, and missed the camera.
None of that would wash as an excuse had I driven pell mell into some poor family’s prize anteater. They would have a critically injured anteater and I would have been even later to get to bed. “I was tired and the road was empty” wouldn’t wash for the sad family of the anteater. Plus my children and my granny won’t be confident to drive with an anteater injurer. I have now learned my lesson boy howdy.
Said lesson was delivered in an old transport museum an hour and a half drive from Imperial College where I invigilated the morning shift. I didn’t want to be late so had to floor it to get there and I’m glad I did as now I know the error of my ways. I’m a new man guv, honest I am. I can feel myself walking lighter than when I came into that course. The scales have fallen away from my eyes. I feel free. Bright. I could sing. SING!
“This is a fucking waste of time,” John grumbles. My neighbour on the right agrees with him. I’m between two ladies, I’m one of the youngest of the twenty four people in this room. Our facilitator is trying to bring lightness to a room full of pissed off old people. I’m here and not on zoom mainly because I’m curious to see this executed in person, and partly because I hate zoom meetings with a deep burning passionate zeal. Most of the people here can’t operate their phone.
But on my left: “Alexander! My name is the same as Alexander the Great’s mother!” She is enjoying being here. She doesn’t get out much perhaps. It is adult learning. I try take a leaf out of her book. She gets me a cup of tea. Might as well enjoy it while it is in front of us.
We play guess the speed limit. We watch hazard awareness videos and guess what is going to be drawn next on the screen. We see a parked van and have to guess what the hazard will be. Will it be a car? A falling piano? A workman in the road? The reason we can’t guess what they’ve made up is because the made up car we are following is driving a little faster than the previous made up car where the hazard was more predictable. Of course. Now I understand.
For the second half I can barely see the screen anyway. I took my lenses out to rest my tired eyes. My neighbour has taken out her hearing aid. “It’s bliss,” she winks.”Selective hearing”.
I am now more aware of speed. I was expecting to have to look at a load of pictures of dead kids. Thankfully it is more practical than that, less of a guilt trip.
I think on some level something has likely got through the barriers. Mostly the fact that if it is 30mph and people keep crashing at 35 they are only gonna drop the road to a 20 and nobody wants that shit. Toe the line now, hopefully avoid losing more liberty down the line? Boiling Frogs. “Why are you on this course? Because they offered it. Because points on the licence would be more expensive.”
£2400 in that room.
140 million in revenue annually. They try and balance it against a notional “cost” from injury of 24.2 billion. There’s even a slide to tell us this . “Yeah but that’s insurance companies and private individuals and so on,” pipes up one wag in our group. Occasionally I look behind me and see how royally pissed off everyone in this room is looking. I’m sitting towards the front. So I can see the screen. Ish.
I’ve got my piece of paper to take home. Learnt a couple of bits and bobs. Hopefully that’ll be it for at least three years.
Sleep now.
AlBarclay 