This came in on the newsfeeds, and it reports that a learner driver, Stacie Ralphes, was on a driving lesson with a driving instructor when she was clocked at 36mph in a 30mph zone and subsequently received a speeding ticket. She was given the option of points or a speed awareness course and took the latter.
The hyenas don’t appear to have got wind of it yet, so the fact that she was on a lesson with an AA instructor hasn’t been given the usual going over. There’s time, though.
I always explain to my pupils that if we were to get a speeding ticket, it would be the driver who gets the points. The instructor – me – could get in trouble for letting it happen (often referred to as “aiding and abetting”) if it could be shown he was negligent or in some way contributory to the act, but the driver gets the points. The article doesn’t make clear the actual events, since the instructor’s version is not presented.
I have never had any pupil flashed for speeding. But I would be liar – and so would any other instructor – if I claimed that none of my pupils had ever exceeded the limit. They sometimes catch you out and you have to regain control very quickly. If you were in the wrong place at the wrong time… well, it could happen to anyone. Indeed, someone recently pointed out that one of their pupils had passed their driving test – even though at one point they reached 35mph in a 30mph zone, but corrected it. One of my own pupils passed a few years ago, and the examiner commented that he had been exceeding the limit a little, but he’d let it go because it was a good drive otherwise.
As I say, the wrong place at the wrong time and everything could be so different.
In this particular case, you’d think that the police would have shown some discretion because one thing you can safely say is that the instructor wasn’t allowing it on purpose. It is quite possible – likely, even – that the instructor dealt with the problem but just too late to avoid the speed camera logging the speed. I’m only speculating, but then so are those who would tar both the instructor in question and the AA with the same brush without knowing the facts themselves.
As it is, the AA has offered to pay for the speed awareness course (and so they should).
Edit: The hyenas have got a hold of it now. As you’d expect – and in the absence of any specific details other than Stacie Ralphes’ version – there are outraged demands for the instructor concerned to be hung, drawn, and quartered. Whether or not that happens is none of the business of the “experts” making the demands.
There is a saying: there but for the Grace of God, go I. Some of these comedians should look that up to see what it means.