Speed Awareness Course Falsehoods

  • 3 min read

In the UK, if you’re caught speeding by not-too-much, you may be offered the opportunity to pay attend a speed awareness course instead of receive a fine with points on your licence. This means you can avoid any increase in insurance (good), but you do need to take the time out of your day to attend (bad). The really good thing about the course (and the general aim) is that normally conscientious drivers might learn new things and be pulled back onto the path of righteousness, and the otherwise un-brilliant drivers might be persuaded that speeding’s not really a good option. Generally a positive thing. What worried me was someone repeating a nugget of information given in a speed awareness course that knew had a high probability of being false, and I had to question it. It’s the idea that “SLOW” on a road is actually an acronym for “Speed Low Observe Warnings”, and this was given as a fact by the lecturer. Stop and engage brain for just a moment, even a few seconds and you can see through this. Obvious issues:

  1. If this is true, then is there a similar acronym for the Welsh “ARAD”?
  2. If true, wouldn’t it make sense for this to be taught more generally? Strangely, I can’t see *any* reference to SLOW in the the Highway Code.
  3. Lastly,why would this exist when the word “SLOW” is in itself pretty clear? Is it really possibly that when SLOW was first being painted on roads that this is what they really meant? Seriously.

Hang on, there’s more.

Some people are told in these courses that 112 is better as an emergency number as it alone passes your GPS co-ordinates to the emergency services (which attendees were told was not the case with 999). Again, simply not true. As it happens, the idea that either number magically transmits GPS information is bizarre in the first place. Trust me, my phone doesn’t. What actually happens is your phone is located using phone mast triangulation. This idiocy is then passed out in normally sensible newspapers (https://www.independent.co.uk/…/i-was-invited-to-attend-a-s…). There are two issues with this: 1. By saying things that are clearly and demonstrably untrue, the real information is tainted. Honestly, why should I believe any instructor who treats me like such as idiot? 2. There’s also the risk that actually dangerous information will be spread, believed in and acted upon.