Costing up the effect of one SP30 kind of misses the point tbh, unless you’re certain you’ll never get any more points. It’s not so much the impact today, as the loss of the safety net.

Surely, having done the course you will be a lesser risk. Otherwise what is the point of the course?

The point of the course is to make people money. Nothing like a bit of profit to go along with the justice.

You now also have to inform your insurance you have attended a speed awareness course.

I just read it on the go compare www whilst seeing if my premium would go up.

A search on Google seems to indicate that most insurers will be jumping on that moneymaker too.

Wow, you really think so? OK 99% of people do it if that makes you happier.

so you have shown you are in the category of those that do speed

Along with 99% of drivers.

and you got caught which shows a possible lack of awareness.

Not all cameras are yellow boxes which you can see before they nab you. Though in any case insurance companies aren’t actually interested in details like that, they’re just interested in whether people with a single SP30 are more likely to have a crash, and presumably for certain demographics the answer is that they aren’t.

Not putting your premium up for your current policy is not the same as it not increasing your premiums for the period of the points.

Sure – so I tried getting quotes with and without an SP30, and it made NO difference to my quoted premium. Those suggesting your premiums will go up, what was the typical difference you saw when you did that?

Because it does impact their competitiveness if the stats say that your risk is no higher and another company is prepared to ignore it because of that. They don’t operate as a cartel, one company is bound to see a gap in the market to provide cheaper quotes to people with an SP30 who are no higher risk, and the whole overcharging thing falls down.

OK 99% of people do it

so not much difference, but some, as I stated.

Not all cameras are yellow boxes which you can see before they nab you.

no, some are on 100ft gantries and others poke out of the back of transit vans. OK 99% of speed cameras are clearly visible if that makes you happier.

Those suggesting your premiums will go up, what was the typical difference you saw when you did that?

Already answered but don’t let the facts ruin your argument 😀

The course – I did it one evening between 5.00pm and 9.00pm in Chesterfield. It was interesting

The course is interesting, I’ve done two! (In my defence one 34/30, one 72/60 overtaking a truck who, it turned out, was also overtaking a camera 🙁 )

I don’t consider myself a boy racer and I endeavour to stick to 30/40/50 limits. Presumably all those preaching on here have NEVER let the needle creep over.

To all the people having a go at the Op:

So when they continued asking him , he
lifted himself up and said unto them, He
that is without sin among you, let him be
the first to cast a stone at her. So when
they continued asking him , he lifted up
himself, and said unto them, He that is
without sin among you, let him first cast a
stone at her.

This^. Fairy tale or not, the Bible is the basis for most common law I believe?

I took the points. Zero increase in premium. Clean licence now. Didn’t waste any holidays!

aracer – Member

Points unless you’ve got holiday days you don’t know what to do with, or you can buy a day’s holiday for less than £15. Unless that is you already have points, in which case some more might affect your premiums.

A few people have mentioned having to take holiday to do the course…

I doubt all areas are the same, but I was surprised when I did a speed awareness course that there were so many time slots.
I did mine in an evening during the week & didn’t have to take any holiday. There were also loads of venues too, so if I couldn’t have got to one near home in time (I live 40 miles from work) there were plenty of venues just down the road from my work place & on a couple on the way home too.

Mine was an AA course; don’t know if they all are. The bloke reckoned that originally they offered the course as something that you could pay up to do, just as a ‘driver improvement’ thing, rather than linked to having been caught speeding. You still had to pay for it.
No one did it, so it ended up getting linked to getting done for speeding.

FWIW, I didn’t mind going but am not sure that I learnt a great deal.
The most surprising thing on the course was how little others seemed to know about driving/speed limits in general. There was only a couple of us able to answer most of the questions and some of the people just had blank expressions through the entire course.
I thought there’d be more ‘it wasn’t fair’ whinging, but there didn’t seem to be.
I was caught doing 34 in a 30 & the highest speeder on the course was doing 38 in a 30. The trainer was surprised that she actually got offered the course, given how far over she was.

so not much difference, but some, as I stated.

Ah, so you are splitting hairs. Near to 100% as makes no difference.

OK 99% of speed cameras are clearly visible if that makes you happier.[/quote]

Not before they nab you they aren’t.

Not to you anyway. Different thing. Autonomous car would have spotted them.

Near to 100% as makes no difference

not really. I dispute your 99% figure (source?) but seeing as you were agreeing with me I let it slide. Even using your dubious figure proving that you in that 99% is a small change, hence the small change in premium I showed.

Not before they nab you they aren’t

that’s the point. They are clearly visible to an observant road user. They are invisible to someone who is distracted or not paying attention (ie a driver at greater risk of being in an accident.

I’d hazard that most speed cameras are clearly visible these days. The only exception I can think of off the top of my head are the ones on the A57 (I think) which are painted dark green and posted in the trees.

That said, the range on some of them is quite startling; the vans are something like 300m IIRC, but the hand-held laser cameras have a range of about a mile. So with the best will in the world, there’s a chance that by the time they’re visible they’ve already clocked you.

Ah, so you reckon you’d have spotted the one which was pointed at the brow of the hill before you’d come over the brow of the hill or the one which was pointed at the bend before you came round the bend?

rocketman – Member

Direct Line – Do you need my policy number?

it must be a special policy because they were definitely loading SP30 convictions just two months ago [/quote]

An SP30 is an actual conviction as I understand it. If you take the SAC the offence is technically written off.

As for the SAC, don’t know about two months ago but up to last October on my Direct Line renewal I’ve not had any mention of needing to declare that I’ve been on one. If not asked about it, there is no obligation to declare it. This has been echoed by a number of the guys who run the courses also. If the insurance asks though then yes you have to answer truthfully or risk invalidating insurance.

SAC guys delivering the course I attended (83/70 motorway) had an interesting take on insurance companies. Since completing the SAC course specifically means you do not have points on your license, you should ring up any insurance company asking you to declare the SAC and ask for a discount as the evidence is that attendees are safer drivers…
They also suggested ringing the insurance ombudsman (whoever that might be) and reporting the company.

That said, the range on some of them is quite startling; the vans are something like 300m IIRC, but the hand-held laser cameras have a range of about a mile. So with the best will in the world, there’s a chance that by the time they’re visible they’ve already clocked you.

I believe the vans are up to 999m, I think the handheld ones are also type approved to that distance. They will almost certainly have got you before you notice them..