Driving - pay the fine or take the course +EV

[DungBeetle]

My car has a really annoying loud beep that goes off if the driver has no seatbelt on - good feature in my opinion.  It's literally impossible to drive without your seatbelt without tearing your hair out.

[kinboshi]

Back-seat passengers can do real damage to those in the front seats if they're not wearing seat-belts - as demonstrated in that TV ad.

But I guess Mummy or Daddy being killed in a crash when they could have survived if wearing a belt will affect their kids in a pretty big way as well.

[DungBeetle]

Yep so fine them.  Why do you need a government official to explain one sentence to you in 4 hours?

[kinboshi]

Yep so fine them.  Why do you need a government official to explain one sentence to you in 4 hours?

It gets people talking about it, and that in itself could save lives.

[AdamM]

On the speed awareness course I went on they told us you do not have to inform your insurance company you have been on one of the courses, and that they shouldn't even be asking you.
They recommended you give them a bit of a bollocking for asking.

I think it's a good initiative to attempt to re-educate drivers, rather than just hit them with points and a fine for relatively minor and first offenses. I'm a relatively careful driver. I routinely drive at or below the speed limit. My speeding offense was a genuine error in an unfamiliar area, on a quiet sunday afternoon, blaj blah. It was a good reminder to me to pay extra attention in those circumstances. Like someone earlier in the thread said, the biggest eye opener for me was the attitude and lack of knowledge of the majority of the people on the course. Many had no idea of the various speed limits of their vehicles in different situations, and many felt that things like speed limits, pelican crossings, seat belts, etc should be optional. Scary how bad some of them seemed to be.

Sure they're a long, boring, expensive and patronising, but maybe those are all necessary factors.

I'd have more unmarked police cars and hidden speed cameras if it were up to me. if everyone followed the rules of the road, we'd all be better off.

[tikay]

Yep so fine them.  Why do you need a government official to explain one sentence to you in 4 hours?

We don't - but we got caught breaking the Law, & they gave us a choice - points on our licence, or a Course.

We lost all our negotiating rights when we got caught.

I got caught using my Mobile whilst drivng around 7 years ago, & chose to take the course.

The Course was a bit of a rude awakening, when they told us stories like this.....


 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-east-wales-31312480

[DungBeetle]

To clarify I'm certainly in favour of courses for speeding/mobile phone use.  My point is that speeding/mobile phone use is reasonably likely to kill someone else whereas seat belts largely impact the drivers themselves (aside from the more obscure circumstances that have been brought up).

So I'd differentiate between the offences and have fines for seatbelt misuse and points/courses for speeding/mobile phones.

I would stress that I am a careful driver and always wear a seatbelt.

I just don't see what they can say about seatbelts outside of 3/4 sentences.  Excessive Government interference gets my back up.

[kinboshi]

To clarify I'm certainly in favour of courses for speeding/mobile phone use.  My point is that speeding/mobile phone use is reasonably likely to kill someone else whereas seat belts largely impact the drivers themselves (aside from the more obscure circumstances that have been brought up).

So I'd differentiate between the offences and have fines for seatbelt misuse and points/courses for speeding/mobile phones.

I would stress that I am a careful driver and always wear a seatbelt.

I just don't see what they can say about seatbelts outside of 3/4 sentences.  Excessive Government interference gets my back up.

Surely most people who are killed whilst not wearing a seat-belt have families that are affected by their death?  Hardly 'obscure'.

[DungBeetle]

Deaths always impact family.  The obscure part is the situations where it is not the driver himself who is physically impacted by his stupidity in not wearing a seatbelt.

If we are going to bring the family into it then we should start sending smokers and drinkers on 4 hour Government courses every weekend until they stop.

[kinboshi]

Deaths always impact family.  The obscure part is the situations where it is not the driver himself who is physically impacted by his stupidity in not wearing a seatbelt.

If we are going to bring the family into it then we should start sending smokers and drinkers on 4 hour Government courses every weekend until they stop.

Could bore them into quitting?  Sounds like a plan!  Maybe smokers should be forced to listen to bad-beat stories whilst they smoke, that'd help.

[titaniumbean]

On the speed awareness course I went on they told us you do not have to inform your insurance company you have been on one of the courses, and that they shouldn't even be asking you.
They recommended you give them a bit of a bollocking for asking.

I think it's a good initiative to attempt to re-educate drivers, rather than just hit them with points and a fine for relatively minor and first offenses. I'm a relatively careful driver. I routinely drive at or below the speed limit. My speeding offense was a genuine error in an unfamiliar area, on a quiet sunday afternoon, blaj blah. It was a good reminder to me to pay extra attention in those circumstances. Like someone earlier in the thread said, the biggest eye opener for me was the attitude and lack of knowledge of the majority of the people on the course. Many had no idea of the various speed limits of their vehicles in different situations, and many felt that things like speed limits, pelican crossings, seat belts, etc should be optional. Scary how bad some of them seemed to be.

Sure they're a long, boring, expensive and patronising, but maybe those are all necessary factors.

I'd have more unmarked police cars and hidden speed cameras if it were up to me. if everyone followed the rules of the road, we'd all be better off.

ya more on that, on the speed awareness course, during a 'whats the limit here and here quiz' we had a 'professional lorry driver' not know the speed limits for lorries

I couldn't help pointing out that he was a shit professional and an utter prick  (  [ ] that went down well.....) for quite smugly saying that he was a pro but no he literally had no clue of any of the limits relating to his vehicle type. he didn't seem embarrassed, wasn't saying oh they've changed over the years just an utter 'meh oh well'.



so it's not just gen pop that has no clue about what's going on around them on the road.

[EvilPie]

I'd have more unmarked police cars and hidden speed cameras if it were up to me. if everyone followed the rules of the road, we'd all be better off.

Definitely agree with this although I'd be really pissed off when I got caught.

They've recently introduced a new 20mph speed limit near me which is apparently going to make the roads safer.

What's the point when they didn't even enforce the old 30mph limit? All that will happen is that the sensible people who used to do 30 will do 20 and the idiots who don't give a shit still won't give a shit.

Rant over.

[titaniumbean]

I'd have more unmarked police cars and hidden speed cameras if it were up to me. if everyone followed the rules of the road, we'd all be better off.

Definitely agree with this although I'd be really pissed off when I got caught.

They've recently introduced a new 20mph speed limit near me which is apparently going to make the roads safer.

What's the point when they didn't even enforce the old 30mph limit? All that will happen is that the sensible people who used to do 30 will do 20 and the idiots who don't give a shit still won't give a shit.

Rant over.

the worst people are the ones who do 'X' mph regardless of road conditions.

30 in a 40, 30 in a 60, 30 in a 20 etc  utterly incompetent.

[Royal Flush]

Does it?  Crash head on.  One driver dies, the other doesn't.  Unless you are talking about psychological damage from being involved in a fatal accident?

In any case, I don't see why a 4 hour course is needed to state the absolute blinding obvious. 

Head on crash, person not wearing belt goes smashing through windscreen, what/who do you think they are going to hit next?

So we are back to the dangers of flying corpses?  My point is that the possibility of a speeder killing a pedestrian is reasonably high.  The possibiity of someone smashing clean through their windscreen and having enough kinetic energy remaining to smash clean through a second windscreen and kill another driver is small.  People not wearing seatbelts are largely putting themselves at risk - fine them if you want but don't waste time putting them on 4 hour "re-education" courses.

So we should only protect against death? You could easily have a body fly through a window and hurt someone.

[Royal Flush]

Deaths always impact family.  The obscure part is the situations where it is not the driver himself who is physically impacted by his stupidity in not wearing a seatbelt.

If we are going to bring the family into it then we should start sending smokers and drinkers on 4 hour Government courses every weekend until they stop.

If it was not going to effect anyone else i would be with you, if people are stupid enough to drive without a belt on then I am all for maximising the chances they get removed from the gene pool.