The Alliance of British Drivers (ABD) has been campaigning against the abuse of police waivers and the offer of speed awareness courses. The latest figures disclosed by NDORS show that the number of courses undertaken increased to a new record of 1.26 million in 2017. In other words, last year even more drivers were blackmailed into taking a course with the threat of a fine or points on their licence. This is despite the fact there is no hard evidence that such courses have any impact on driver behaviour (a Government commissioned study into their impact seems have been delayed in reporting for unexplained reasons).
The result of these high numbers attending courses is that the police are now receiving £57 million as their proportion of the fees charged on an annual basis. They and NDORS claim that this only covers administrative costs but that is simply not true (the evidence is available on our campaign web site at www.speed-awareness.org). The police are using these fees as a slush fund to finance whatever they want, including the provision of more cameras so that they can rake in even more money from motorists.
The ABD suggests this has nothing to do with road safety but is about generating money for the police to support their shrinking budgets and is of course actively promoted by those in the burgeoning speed camera and course education industry where enormous profits are being made.
There is no evidence that this concentration on speed is having any impact on road safety – it cannot do so for reasons the ABD explained in a previous press release here: https://home-5010050506.webspace-host.com/wordpress/the-hidden-truth-behind-statistics-used-to-justify-speed-enforcement-priorities/
The ABD suggests that the Government should put a stop to this abuse of the criminal justice system forthwith. It is in essence a perversion of justice in the cause of police funding.
More information:
1. The latest data on the number of courses is present on the NDORS web site here: https://ndors.org.uk/trends-stats/ (NDORS are the national scheme operators).
2. The number of standard NSAC courses rose from 1,188,961 in 2016 to 1,195,356 in 2017.
3. The number of NSAC 20 courses (for infringement of 20 mph speed limits), doubled from 17,139 to 34,471.
4. The number of NMSAC courses (for infringement of motorway speed limits was 30,030. It was zero the previous year because this was a new course.
Speed awareness courses are just a slush fund for the police apart from financing more cameras. Totally distorting road safety policy.
Hi, I partly agree with speed awareness courses, because there are no penalty points on your licence and no increase in insurance costs.
This shows that exceeding a political number on a pole at the side of the road is not serious and really not an offence. it also shows that the insurance companies are in cahoots with the authorities over political numbers at the side of the road. Had a study been done on who has the least accidents those that keep to those political numbers, or those who drive the correct speed for the road and road conditions irrespective of political numbers on poles.