Heading to Cambridge to talk to students on politics and religion. I am running late and, stupidly, in the car rather than on a train, even knowing already that anyone who attempts to drive a car in Cambridge must be at least partially insane. I fail to slow down quickly enough from 40 on entering a 30 limit. I get caught. I have been caught twice previously in Cambridge and those endorsements had just expired so I am furious with myself. A few weeks later, the inevitable letter comes but instead of asking for my licence to be sent to court and for £60, it offers a speed awareness course in Peterborough at the cost of £61.30. It runs from 8am to midday and I imagine I can do this and then return to work and write stories for The Times. We sit in rows in front of a whiteboard, like schoolchildren. Within minutes I am sick and ashamed. There are just a few short of 60 speed cameras in Cambridgeshire, not the thousands I had imagined. Wherever there is a fixed speed camera, it means that three people have died or been seriously injured within the last three years. Wherever the word 'SLOW' is marked on a road, it means someone has died. Like catseyes on an 'A' road, statistics, facts and images blink and race by. I can barely get in the car afterwards, never mind drive away. On the return back down the A1, I have to stop every 15 minutes. Our old Toyota Rav4 can't do above 70 in any case but now I can barely do above 20. I visit every service station on the way back. It takes four hours to get home. I miss every work deadline. I wonder how it is I passed my driving test in 1979 and how it is I've never killed anyone, and am grateful the chances of doing so in future are now greatly diminished. Every fifth former in the country should have to do this course.
May 18, 2010
