ABD: “No Benefit From Speed Awareness Courses”

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The Department for Transport have, after a long delay, published the Ipsos-MORI report that they commissioned into the effectiveness of speed awareness courses.

This is the key statement in the Executive Summary: "this study did not find that participation in NSAC [National Speed Awareness Course] had a statistically significant effect on the number or severity of injury collisions". In other words, as the Alliance of British Drivers has repeatedly said, this unethical and legally dubious diversion of drivers to speed awareness courses is primarily about generating money, not about road safety because there is no evidence of any real benefit. Indeed drivers who have attended such courses might be interested in another statement in the report: "the NSAC was not designed to reduce the incidence of collisions". So what exactly is the objective one might ask as it appears not to be focussed on improving road safety?Was the study too small to produce statistically significant results? Not exactly because the records of 2.2 million drivers, of whom 1.4 million had accepted a course offer, were studied over a period of 4 years. This data was linked to subsequent speed reoffending and involvement in collisions to produce the report's conclusions. That's a large sample. The only impact they found was that there was a reduction in reoffending after involvement in an NSAC, but that is surely hardly surprising because drivers might simply take more care about speeding after being caught for one offence because you cannot be offered a second NSAC within 3 years.The report argues that an even bigger study might prove there is some benefit but the proponents of such courses are surely clutching at straws if they think that expense is worthwhile.Regardless we suggest speed awareness courses should cease to be a money making industry for ex-police and road safety officers and should only be offered to people who are actually convicted of speeding offences. Otherwise they are just a way to bribe the police to look the other way when an offence is committed (a waiver of prosecution as they call it).

May 15, 2018 at 02:43PM https://ift.tt/2ufVjKI THESE POSTS ARE NOT OUR ENDORSEMENT