The Speed Awarness Course

OK, it was like this. I left home in my pick-up, and after about 100 yards a very elderly neighbour pulled out in front of me in her little red KIA. She's in her 90s, and a known local hazard, so watching the little car suddenly chug out of the side road did not surprise me. I then followed her down the steep single track road which leads into town, averaging 7 mph. A further 5 minutes then elapsed as she waited to turn left at the junction. No traffic passed in either direction, but still we sat there.

After what seemed half a lifetime, off we went at walking pace for a couple of hundred yards, at which point the road widens out as it leaves town, and in a mixture of relief and mild road rage, I pulled out and overtook her, only to find myself staring at a traffic cop complete with camera.

Bant â'r cart

Bugger. A few weeks later the brown envelope arrived, and I discovered I had clocked 37mph in a 30mph zone. Never having had points before, I decided to opt for the Speed Awareness Course at just over £80 just to keep a clean licence, and yesterday the appointed day came.

The course was held in a hotel room in Carmarthen. You can picture the scene. A slightly dingy, over-heated conference room; laptop and projector at the ready. One of hundreds of death-by-Powerpoint sessions that room has witnessed, the wallpaper steeped in all that collective human boredom and despair.

I discovered that I was one of about 3,000 people from the areas covered by the three police forces in Mid- and South Wales to have attended one of these money spinning events in the last year, and my heart sank even further as the presenter cheerfully told us we would be spending the next four hours in his company. FOUR BLOODY HOURS!

And there is no escape. Everyone is clocked in and their ID checked. Anyone leaving the course before the end will be given the choice of paying another £80+ or taking the points and paying a fine. Anyone leaving the room to pay a quick visit to the loos meant that the whole session came to a halt, and we had to wait for them to return. Imagine 25 people silently praying that the woman concerned was merely having a pee.

Quite a few myths were busted in the session that followed. Here are some.

• The police do not subtract an "allowance" from the speed registered. If you were doing 32mph, that will be the speed you are done for.
• Of the 25 people in the room, only one was under 30. The vast majority were aged 50 to 75. Not a boy racer or would-be Young Farmer rally driver in sight.
• Several of my fellow speedsters were commercial drivers (no surprise there), but it came as news to all of us, them included, that the maximum speed White Van Man is legally allowed to drive is 60mph. Yes, really.
• There have been numerous editions of the Highway Code. We were shown a variety of editions, and the only one I was able to identify was published in 1969. Priced in shillings. I hasten to add that I was far too young to drive on the roads in 1969, although I was pottering around the farm on a grey Fergie. Quite a large contingent recognised only the 1973 edition.

The session began with one of those slightly painful introduction rounds where everybody had to say what they drove, what their annual mileage was and why they needed to drive. Everything was kept anonymous, apart from first names, and it became obvious that about 90% of my fellow convicts were local, born and bred. At least half were Welsh-speaking, including to my amazement a lorry driver from Port Talbot. In fact there were only two obvious Saeson in the room - one, a nice old boy who lived in Derbyshire. He'd been caught while down here with the missus on holiday and had chosen to come back to the Wild West to do the course.

The other Sais was the sort of Englishman who managed to tick all of the boxes on the official List of Reasons Why We'd Rather Support ANYONE Except for England in rugby/football/cricket/you-name-it. Tall, arrogant, posh-sounding. "Bet he drives a Jag", I thought. Actually, it turned out he drives some monster Volvo (automatic), and he spent 10 minutes telling the rest us what a wonderful car it was, with 24 pairs of eyes fixed on him, wishing he would just shut up.

There were quite a few mam-gu's with names like Mair and Delyth. Most of them drive less than 5,000 miles in a year, and one of them only ever drives around Carmarthen to the shops. Another one said that she had never had a fine for anything, and that her family called her "Slow Coach". I believed her, and I bet they all make lovely cawl and Welsh Cakes.

Then there were the old boys. Smartly dressed and kindly looking. Ifan, Dai and Ieuan. You could picture them getting the immaculately polished Vauxhall out of the garage for its weekly spin down to Bethel.

There was a Swansea Jack-the-Lad who had a double glazing business (actually he came from Llanelli). 100% pure Welsh charm, and you could imagine having a laugh with him down at the Llew Du. A farmer's wife who had an HGV licence, and I ended up fancying her.

Gradually the atmosphere improved, in the way that only a room full of Welsh people could warm up a

The course wound its way through the afternoon, and we watched a few films taken from vehicles travelling along a variety of roads (town, suburban, narrow street with parked cars either side). In one we were travelling along a road in some outer leafy suburb, with big houses at the end of long drives. "Wouldn't it be nice to own one of those?" the instructor asked. "Where is it?" someone asked. "Dunno. Somewhere in England," came the reply. "I wouldn't live THERE if you paid me. Not in England", said the farmer's wife. The instructor hurriedly pointed out that we had some English guests, and he swiftly moved to the next subject.

Oh, Cymru fach. I wouldn't miss it for the world.

So I now know how to work out the speed limit of most roads even if there are no speed restriction signs. I know what repeaters are and the speed limits for different types of vehicle. And I hope I won't let the old lady make me fork out for another speeding offence.