Why the rush? Speed awareness course numbers hit new record highs in 2019
Nearly 1.3million motorists attended a speed awareness course last year, up by nearly 100,000 from the previous year.
The record numbers in 2019 saw 1,282,698 people completing the course, up from 1,186,536 in 2018.
For those caught speeding, the chance to attend a course is offered at the discretion of the police and comes in place of a prosecution.
Research by the RAC Foundation, based on Home Office data for 2018-19, suggests that 44% of all speeding offences detected in England and Wales result in someone being sent on a course.
According to NDORS, the organisation behind the scheme, a further 209,538 people attended one of the other eight types of courses that are run.
This means that 1,492,236 road users undertook some type of driver offender retraining in 2019. This is up from 1,445,817 in 2018, and 467,601 in 2010.
The other courses include:
National Motorway Speed Awareness course (106,957 attendees in 2019)
Whats Driving Us? (76,430)
Safe and Considerate Driving (12,774)
Your Belt – Your Life (12,417)
The cost of attending a speed awareness course varies across the country ranging from £75 in Durham to £95 in Humberside.
Steve Gooding, Director of the RAC Foundation, said: “It would be good to think that as more and more people pass through the doors of these courses so our roads are getting safer. For some, at least, that appears to be true.
“The challenge is in making the lessons stick once the motorists attending them are back out in the often all-too-aggressive world of modern traffic.”
