Jumping Reds

On Tuesday I journeyed to the lovely city of Cambridge to take part on a driving course for accidentally jumping a red light. Should you find yourself in this situation, here's what you might find...

Instead of a room full of 15 morons who could care less about what they had done, or why they were there, I was presented with a room that contained some of the hyperbolic characters that you expect to meet in life as well as people not so dissimilar to myself. It was definitely a melting pot for all and I was along for the ride.

The presenters of the course itself, George and Frances, were two pretty comical guys with a lot of character and albeit formulaic wit, it was funny all the same. I'm sure repeating the same things over and over again, day in day out all over the country can wear a bit thin and as they had already done a class that morning I'm sure they were more than ready for home.

But this didn't phase them at all. The banter was good and after everyone had warmed up to each other, (typically 10 minutes before the end), things were a lot easier.

I also managed to learn a few things on the course, handy tit bits of knowledge that could help the every day driver from avoiding landing themselves on the course or even worse 3 points on their license. Obviously there are far worse outcomes to driving like a bloody moron, but we'll skip the more macabre aspects of life.

For starters I realised that holding a mobile phone, not using it to make a call, not texting, not being a moron and checking Facebook, can land you in the same position I was in. Although I wasn't there for a mobile phone offence, unlike a good 60% of the class, I am guilty of having used mine in the past whilst driving. Mainly to change songs, but others things as well.

The course did a great job of reminding everyone that they are human, they we all make mistakes, but in this case we should consider reevaluating our weird superiority complexes and accept the mighty driving gods aren't in fact controlling our fate: we are.

You know what else I found out? Slow signs are put where there has been a fatal collision. The majority number of the slow signs we see are actually there because someone thought, 'I can definitely take that corner going 80' and failed miserably. Also SLOW is an acronym. It stands for 'Speed Low Observe Warning'. That's insane to me. How did I not know that? Also how did I forget between yesterday and today and have to Google it? Who knows!

Although the overall experience was positive, there were a few people in the room that I wish could have had their licenses taken off of them there and then. One woman had clearly felt the punishment was unfair and at every given opportunity would relate the examples back to being busy or having too much to do in the day, while another was just a moronic generic middle aged trophy who drives a car too big for her. Also, trophy wives really shouldn't be considered trophies unless every time they open their mouths they have something innately profound to say as well as being a looker. Plus, she was more of what I'd call a 'complete fucking idiot' over a trophy, but who am I to label people?

Either way, the moral of this story is, we're all stupid, we're all human, but for your own sake and for the people around you, think of driving as a very expensive and frustrating privilege over a right that we instil in ourselves. If we had the right to drive, there would be no punishment, there would be no license.