Not So Big Bother!
I unsuccessfully appealed the parking ticket and had to pay the parking fine. C’est la vie! However, despite my anguish at yet more of my grant disappearing to pay for a speeding offence, I was more concerned at the three point penalty. My licence has been point-free for only weeks after the clearing, after three years, of two previous speeding offences. I was determined to keep my licence clean, and was dumbstruck when the notification dropped through the letterbox.
Fortunately, I was doing 57 MPH in a 50 MPH zone, a marginal offence which meant that I qualified to attend a speed awareness course as an alternative to pleading guilty and paying the standard sixty-pound fine.
Yesterday was the day of the course, and along with twenty-five other sheepish-looking ‘boy (and girl) racers’ I awaited what I think we all presumed would be a harangue similar to those in Orwell’s 1984. What a pleasant surprise was had by all. Our ‘re-education’ was under the tuition of Richard, an amiable scot, and an expert on ways of resisting the urge to break the speed limit. Richard explained that he drove many miles each year, and needed a powerful car in which to travel. Therefore, he needed to be mindful of the law, and had avoided prosecution since he had been a young boy racer himself many years ago. He was a mine of information, almost a walking highway code. But he gave us many tips that are not in the code, and are just common sense, really. He was an expert, and we couldn’t have been under the tutelage of a better man.
Though I feel affronted by the Orwellian proliferation of observation that has crept into British daily life in recent years, no sensible person could object to speed control. Richard explained how to anticipate speed restriction, and therefore be able to avoid getting caught by a speed camera. The need to attend the course was irksome, but I’m glad I did. I learned from it. I also avoided the three penalty points, and maintain my clean licence. Quid pro quo, then.