I thought I'd go back to regular blogging (even though I'm so busy still, ughhh). I'll probably blog about something that interests me daily (if possible).
[Anyone who is reading this who is trying to contact me and hasn't got a reply, I'm sorta ignoring messages on my iPhone at the moment just because I want to try and get some work started at least so I can establish some sort of routine/balance between work and play. I can't go out comfortably without at least getting a fair amount done =/ you could say I'm trying to become a study-holic this year - maybe a 70/30 balance between work and play. If you need me urgently or something, give me a call, I'll answer calls (because no one calls me anyway hur hur)].
Dad got caught doing 36mph in a 30mph area which constitutes to "speeding". It might not seem like much but you probably know, it's not arguable, you could be doing 31mph down a 30 road and still be a speeder. Anyway, the standard penalty is a fine and 3 points on his license, the police has offered him either that or pay the fine and do a 4 hour course and get no points added. My initial reaction was "a course? a speeders course? what could that include?" I mean it sounds so ridiculous, the rationale behind such a course is to change people's behaviours so they won't speed again. I don't really believe in classes/interventions that aim to change behaviour - a lot of behaviour is down to personality and an individual's personality is usually stable through life - unless you change personality, behaviour is very hard to change. It's like they're not getting to the root of the problem, if someone is a habitual speeder, it's probably because they're impulsive or some other personality related aspect.
So I read up a bit on the course online and what other people have said about it since Mum considered getting Dad to take the course so he won't get any penalty points on his license. I found that the course is something similar to what you'd do at school, introducing yourself (can you imagine... "hello my name is _______ and I'm a speeder." no duh!), getting together in groups of 2-3 and sticking pictures down on a large piece of paper, watching video clips with kids getting hit by speeding cars or motorcycles getting hit by speeding cars etc etc. Those sort of activities that aim to "change" behaviour, I'd be really interested to see how effective such measures are in actually changing people - in terms of data for how many of these people actually are driving at 30 in rural areas and which are still driving at 40 in a 30 street. I'd probably expect most people just take the course because they can avoid the points hence avoid their insurance shooting sky high (especially if they're young) and of course, the government get money for the price of the course (£95!).
Maybe the government aren't bothered by the amount of behaviour the course can change but rather they want to implement some sort of system where they can feel like they are doing something to prevent tragedies on the road. But of course, with such bogus classes, the speeders get away with being punished with penalty points and the government can get away with the guilt of feeling as if they cannot do anything about the amount of speeders out there.
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