TWENTY people are sitting around desks in the conference room of a hotel on the outskirts of York. On a whitescreen in front of them, trainer Louise Ridgeway flashes up a slide. Coping Strategy, it says, and then spaced out down the screen, the letters COAST.

“Can anyone tell me what the C stands for?” she asks.

“Concentrate?” someone suggests.

“Right, concentrate,” Louise says. “Which is what you’ve all been doing for the last four hours. And O?”

“Observation!” someone says.

A stands for anticipation, it turns out, S and T for space and time.

“Everybody who has ever had a crash knows they have run out of space and time,” Louise says.

No, this isn’t a motivational course for middle managers or a team-building exercise for white-collar workers. It is a speeding awareness course. And every one of the 20 people sitting in this room is here because they broke the law by driving too fast.

They are not boy racers, however. None of these people were caught leading police on a high-speed chase. These are all ordinary motorists who were caught going a bit faster than the speed limit.

“This is aimed at low-end speed offences,” says Insp Dave Brown, head of strategic roads policing at North Yorkshire Police. “They were doing between 31-39mph in a 30mph zone, that kind of speed.”

The people here were given a choice: pay a £60 fine and accept three points on their licence, or attend the Fairfield Manor Hotel for four hours of what police call “speed awareness training”. They all chose the latter.

“I would rather come here than have three points,” says Gabriella T, a 38-year-old carer from near Harrogate, who was caught doing 36 in a 30mph zone in Leeds. “I thought I would give it a go, see what I could learn.”

In the course of four hours, Gabriella and her ‘classmates’ have been given a crash course in the dangers and consequences of speeding. There have been bald statistics on the numbers of people killed and injured on our roads every year (see panel); an assessment of how much speeding contributes to those statistics; and harrowing information about what happens when something goes wrong.

Among the real-life cases presented is that of a 14-year-old boy, knocked over and killed as he was crossing a road. It was a 30mph zone. The car was doing 38mph.

“Police investigations proved that if the car had been doing 30mph, it would have stopped before hitting the boy,” says Steve Appleby of AA Drive Tech, which runs the course. “If the speed had been 30, the boy lives.”

That is one of the key messages – that in a 30mph zone, where children are likely to be crossing the road, even a few miles per hour over the limit can make a huge difference. “A pedestrian is twice as likely to be killed by a car travelling at 35mph as by a car travelling at 30mph,” says Insp Brown.

It is all very well telling people that, however. Getting them to take it on board in such a way that it will change their driving habits is quite another.

That is why courses such as do not preach. “It’s about having a grown-up conversation,” says David Richards, AA Drive Tech’s marketing director. “Most people, most drivers, have beliefs about what is safe and what’s not safe. We challenge those beliefs.”

It is partly about personalising the experience, adds Steve Appleby. “We’re asking: ‘If this was your son, your friend, what would you do about it?’ We’re putting them in that position.”

Judging by the reactions of Gabriella and her classmates, it might just work. Gabriella did not realise she had been speeding until the letter arrived saying she had been caught on camera. The road was empty at the time.

Her main motivation for attending was to avoid the penalty points. But she learned on the course, she says – especially about what a difference a few miles an hour can make to someone’s chances of survival.

“It made me think, and I will be more aware of speed in future,” she says.

Company boss Mark, 44, from Newcastle, was equally impressed. He had been having a nightmare day when he was caught speeding on the A1 north of York.

He had driven to Heathrow in a hired car to catch a business flight to Malaysia, only for his flight to be cancelled because of volcanic ash from Iceland.

So he drove all the way back up to Newcastle again, in a hired Nissan Note. “It was 12 hours in a hire car,” he says. “Not a good day.”

He was caught doing 60.2mph in a 50mph zone. He usually drives a Jaguar XKR. “So all my friends were taking the mick that I was done not in my Jag but in a Nissan.”

Joking aside, he knows how dangerous driving can be. Some years ago, when he was in his 20s, he was driving up the A1 when he saw a boy killed. “The lady in the car in front of me hit him. It wasn’t her fault, he just ran across the road.

“I held his hand. It took 15 minutes for him to die.”

For a few years after that, he drove more slowly, he admits. He now has children of his own, aged 11 and 12. “I do worry about them. They don’t think, they don’t concentrate while crossing the road.”

He thinks of himself as a safe driver – he was taught to drive by a policeman father – but even so, he does speed, like many of us.

So will the course have changed the way he drives? He only came to avoid the three penalty points, he says.

“But it has been a very good course. It brought home the significance of the small increments in speed between 30-35. There is no question that I will be more likely to stick to the speed limit in future. I wonder why this course isn’t compulsory for everyone every 20 years or so. It only takes four hours, but it will make a difference to my driving habits.”



NIGEL Cheney was less than impressed at having to attend the speed awareness course. “It’s a joke, to be honest with you,” says the self-employed businessman from Pontefract, sitting in the reception area of the Fairfield Manor Hotel before the course. “I was doing 33 in a 30mph zone.”

The 50-year-old married father only attended to avoid the three points on his licence, which he needs for work.

He thinks of himself as a average driver. “Everybody breaks the speed limit sometimes,” he says.

“I try to keep within 10mph of the limit, but the faster you drive, the more you concentrate. I judge the road conditions.”

It would be his “worst nightmare” to run a child over, he admits. “I don’t think you would ever get over it.”

So did he expect to learn much from the course, and would it change his driving habits?

He sounds sceptical. “It depends what they are going to tell me. You only take in about ten to 20 per cent of what you’re told.”

After completing the four-hour course, however, he was a different man.

“It has really opened my eyes,” he says, speaking on a mobile phone as his wife drives him home.

He learned a lot: about the difference just a few miles an hour can make to someone’s chances of surviving being hit; about why speed cameras are sited where they are.

“For every speed camera, there are three people who have died there. That makes a difference to the way I think.”

The course was well presented and engaging, without being preachy.

“It was very informative. You’ve been driving for years and you think you know it all, then somebody points something out, and you realise you’re not as clever as you think you are.”

He was so impressed, in fact, that he spent the whole journey home bending his wife’s ear about the need to drive safely. “I’m pestering her. She said any more and I’m walking!”

He hadn’t wanted to go, he admits. “But it will change the way I drive. It has made me more aware, and I will definitely observe the speed limit a bit more.”



SPEED awareness courses in North Yorkshire were introduced earlier this year. They are run by AA Drive Tech on behalf of North Yorkshire Police There are generally two courses a week, one in the north of the county, one in the south.

Since June, according to David Richards of AA Drive Tech, about 500 motorists have attended courses in the county.

Motorists caught speeding at a few miles over the limit are offered the chance of attending the course instead of paying a £60 fixed penalty fine and getting three points on their licence.

They pay £69 to do the course. “So they are in effect paying £9 to avoid the three points,” Mr Richards said.

Far more important than that, they are learning to be better drivers.

All the evidence shows that courses like this do make a difference, Mr Richards says. “Somebody who has attended a speeding course is half as likely to offend again as somebody who gets three points on their licence.”

Insp Dave Brown, of North Yorkshire Police, agrees. Police will still prosecute motorists who drive recklessly and dangerously fast, he says. But for those ordinary motorists who have just been driving a little faster than they should…. “Education is better than prosecution. And it is definitely working.”

Road casualties in 2008 – the latest year for which official figures are available:

• North Yorkshire: 3,379 casualties in total, 579 serious injuries, 52 deaths. The county had the second highest road deaths tally among young people aged 17-25 in the country.

• Nationally: 230,905 casualties in total, 26,034 serious injuries, 2,538 deaths.