Car insurers start penalising speed awareness courses

With camera vans and fines and everything..?

Not paying attention while driving is entirely different from speeding and it's what kills the majority of road casualties (and I would guess a disproportionate number of cyclists) but there's no penalty for not paying attention unless you hit someone, whereas resources have been funnelled into 'revenue camera conspiracy' vans, which can nick people for small indiscretions when there's noone about to kill.

I've done a speed awareness course (34 in a 30 zone, noone about to kill) and there really wasn't a lot that could be said about speed, most of it was about awareness (and to be fair there were some right hopeless people on the course, like the bloke who was told 3 separate times that the speed limit on a derestricted dual carriageway was 70,  and still insisted it would 'always be 60 to me!')

And Cougs, you're a cyclist and hang round with cyclists; if you were an old person and hung round with old people, you'd probably know a few who'd snapped hips/femurs and bled out after a fall... it's a genuine problem.

Yeah but if people who do speed awareness courses are a higher risk that at least suggests that speeding (assuming those on courses are more likely to speed than those who are not) is a risk factor.   OK it may not be the speeding - perhaps people who speed are impatient drivers or disregard other laws too - but there is something there that links speeding to accidents. 

If insurance companies increase the premium for drivers who get caught speeding, then they should do it for ALL drivers who get caught speeding, surely?

If the premium is based on risk, and if it has been shown that people who drive faster than the speed limit are more likely to have an accident, then why would they NOT increase the premium?

Having said that, when I got caught doing 39 in a 30 zone I wasn't give the choice of doing the course and my insurance company didn't increase my premium anyway.

I do know FB and Plum ?

There must be a link to speed and accidents. The only RTA i've witnessed this year was a guy who hit a lamp post. No idea how - but he was doing about 60mph in a 30  zone. No traffic - perfect visibility.  Had he been doing 30 - then I cant see how you'd have hit it. 

...but it defeats the object of having a speed awareness course, which cost more in terms of time, money and effort than taking the points. It's admitting that people can't be educated into being 'better' drivers (whatever 'better' might mean)

If I were the sort of driver who accumulated lots of points, I'd now take 3 points every time until the last possible occasion when I could take the course, then use the course as a 'get out of jail free' card; thus the chance of educating me would've been missed.

Insurance companies are just sore that it now costs £500 to replace a body-coloured wrap-around back bumper and they break at 7mph. These aren't accidents which cause death or serious injury and have shag all to do with road safety.

Theres a lot of inflation in these insurance claims anyway - the whole thing is a mess.

We had to have a replacement car when some speeding twunt wrote ours off in a head on. 

The cost of the hire car per day was ridiculous - and all of this was being passed on from insurer to insurer. How can it be a fraction of the cost for me to rent a car from Hertz or wherever compared to the might of the insurance industry ? 

It's just a matter of time for those two, Cougs

That kind of illustrates my point; if that guy had been doing 35 in a 30 zone, he'd have missed the lamp post too, yet he could have got 3 points for that. Several of our recent local fatalities have been youngsters crashing into trees...and each of them has been on a road where you could quite safely stay on the tarmac at 20mph over the speed limit. If those roads had no speed limit at all, they were still driving too fast. They are just unsafe drivers. All the laws in the world will not influence people like these to slow down, and they're the ones who have the fatal accidents. People doing 34 in a 30 zone when all is quiet aren't going to kill anyone and I reckon if you took idiots, drunks, druggies, the uninsured, stolen cars, emergency vehicles on the way to an incident out of the statistics, the number of deaths caused by 5-10mph over the limit would be tiny.

Someone reversed into my Wife's car and caused a minor scrape over a wheel arch, it went in and was repaired, she had a courtesy car etc, the bill came to us, and added up to £3,300 with even a replaced alloy which they could not verify as free from buckling.

Someone reversed into my Daughters car and did a runner, she had similar damage and took it to get a repair of her own, to save the no-claims disappearing, hers cost £250. Both cars less than one year old, both good repairs. maybe the biggest insurance fraudsters are not on this side of the fence.

I don't think people would mind so much if speed cameras were used with common sense.

If a stretch of road is 30mph...  and goes past a school, I'd be happy to accept a conviction for doing 34mph there.  That would be inappropriate speed - especially in the rain..

Further down the road, on a completely clear stretch, with good visibility... if I drifted up to 34mph, I would hope that a policeman would  stop me and take into account the conditions and 30+ years of conviction-free motoring before deciding whether a conviction was appropriate. 

In reality, the "safety" camera is more likely to be located on the straight safe stretch, because it's easier to operate the cameras there, and more likely do business.

This is why, to me, speeding offences are in some disrepute.  It's the brainless application of the speeding laws, and insurance consequences, that make peope despair.

Blimey, didn't know about that one, mate! Sounds like you had a lucky escape! (having said that, he'd not be in my '5mph over the limit' stats, he'd qualify as an idiot for being on teh wrong side of the road)

My last accident was when a delivery driver backed into my car when it was parked on my drive; I had to have a courtesy car as it took out the light cluster (it was winter and I needed the lights) and it was enormously expensive. The previous five were two rear-ends when I was stationary, one was when someone pulled out on me at a roundabout (it was a really badly-designed roundabout, I had real sympathy for the chap), one someone turned right from a side road straight into my offside (he just didn't look, which was a shame as there was a line of stationary traffic!) and one arrogant tosser in a Wange Wover tried to go straight on in a right turn lane and sideswiped me.

I really was just minding my own business, I just became a crash magnet for a while

Jeez - you'd be better off in a bumper car !

I think I'm sticking to bikes. Far cheaper and so much harder to speed on a bike !

it's been years now since I've had a bump, but that's where the "Crash" bit came from. Three of them were in 4 weeks, including getting the courtesy car rear-ended. No matter how self-critical I am, I really can't accept responsibility for any of those accidents, even the ones when I was moving!

They've ruined my best local 'speeding on a bike' road by raising the limit to 40

RW, 'brainless application' sums it up nicely, methinks; I'd have no qualms about getting nicked by a proper copper driving behind me; I'd feel it was my own fault for not looking in my mirror frequently enough! Speed cameras are just taxes on tourists, because they don't know where to brake

What kills is innaprpriate use of speed and overtaking in dangerous places.

70mph on a dry motorway is safe. 20mph on a snowy B road in a 60mph limit can be fatal at certain times. It's a case of sticking to speed limits and using the speed appropriately.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eMObp6gENU

Driver training or lack of it,

Most people had 10 or 20 driving lessons when they were 17-20, took a very basic test and passed, now years later the cars they are driving are faster, more powerful with gadgets to help with everything but the driver is still the same person with little or no training, eysight and reaction has deteriated.

Through my job i have had equal to 3 month driver training which according to the Institute of advance motorist put me in the top 2% in the country, biggest thing i learnt is to know your limits, not the cars.

Speed is as a result of over confidence, same as agression.

We all have sworn at the bloke doing 80 in the rain in the outside lane and then at the crawler doing 20 on the inside lane.

A stricter initial test and re-testing would be a better way to reduce accidents, restricitng cars...why do you need a car capable of 160mph or with a 4.5L engine when the limit is 70.

To some extent that ^ and to some extent this 

Now theres a plan Crashie.

Stopping speeding is simple, make everyone have a satellite controlled speed restrictor in their car, so you can't go beyond the roads speed limit. Anyone found with an unrestricted car - instant life time ban, no remission.

But that wouldn't make any money from speeding fines and sending people on courses.

Interesting that nobody picked up on my comment about how not every one who goes on a drivers awareness course has been caught speeding.

I was caught speeding at 36 in a 30 zone,on a road that I was unfamiliar with and honestly thought was a 40 zone.  I was wrong, fair enough,  I did the course.

On the course were people who had not been caught breaking the law in any way.  There is a local employer who has seen evidence that when he sends all of his staff that drive on company business onto these courses, that they tend to have less accidents so his company insurance premiums are lower.  He wouldn't be paying for these courses if he didn't think that they worked.

There were also people who had been caught using their mobiles, jumping red lights and eating behind the wheel.  Drivers Awareness Courses are there to raise awareness of how to drive safely - not just to get people to stop speeding.