Speed courses slow down drivers study finds

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SPEED awareness courses on offer in Redditch do slow drivers down long-term, new research has found.

Motorists who attended a course had their attitude to speeding changed, were less likely to break the limit in future and had a more positive view of the need for road safety schemes.

The 18 month study was carried out by Professor Robin Martin, of Aston University Business School in Birmingham, and researcher Cara Donald who quizzed over 1,300 motorists caught speeding from five police regions, including West Mercia.

All of them had attended an awareness course run by Shropshire based TTC who provide them in Redditch.

They are offered to motorists instead of having penalty points on their licence and were introduced by the Government as a way of educating the public about the dangers of speeding to bring down road casualties.

Their views were tracked before attending the course, immediately after and up to six weeks after.

Prof Martin said: "The results clearly show the speed awareness course led to reliable improvements in client’s attitude to speeding and importantly their intention not to break the speed limit.

"The benefit of the course occurred immediately and persisted several weeks after course delivery. The speed awareness course led to very reliable improvements in clients’ attitude towards not speeding."

Although many people had attended the course just to avoid getting three points on their licence, once they completed the course they realised how useful it was and a total of 80 per cent said they would attend the course because they knew they would learn something.

Older women had a more positive attitude not to speed than younger men after attending the course, and it also challenged misconceptions and helped people take personal responsibility for their own driving.

Those who blamed others for their speeding and had a mindset they should not be on the course had a more negative view and were less likely to change their behaviour as a result, the report showed.

People who had already amassed penalty points on their driving licence had a lower attitude to the course benefits. Older people had the best attitude, particularly older women.

Anna Higgins, communications manager for West Mercia Safer Roads Partnership, welcomed the findings.

"Speed awareness and national driver offender retraining schemes are supported by national government and ACPO and it is acknowledged education is a more favourable route than prosecution."

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