An alternative to points that many drivers are offered
Drivers caught speeding at a low level may be offered a course instead of a fine and penalty points. This article summarises GOV.UK guidance on speeding penalties and the final report of a Department for Transport evaluation of the National Speed Awareness Course (NSAC), published in May 2018. The report describes the course as offered by nearly all police forces in England and Wales, and the evaluation used records from police forces in England. The GOV.UK speeding guidance covers the UK and notes that fines are paid by different routes in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Scotland and Northern Ireland are outside the scope of this article. It is general information, not legal advice.
What a speeding penalty involves
GOV.UK says the minimum penalty for speeding is a £100 fine and three penalty points. A driver caught by a speed camera is sent a Notice of Intended Prosecution and a Section 172 notice within 14 days, which must be returned within 28 days to say who was driving. A driver who accepts a fixed penalty notice pays the fine and gets the points, unless offered a speed awareness course.
GOV.UK says a course may be offered if the police decide it is appropriate for the offence and the driver has not been on a speed awareness course in the past three years. For new drivers, it says a licence is revoked if the driver builds up six or more penalty points within two years of passing the driving test. Courses are an alternative, and they matter to new drivers for that reason.
How the evaluation was done
Ipsos MORI, working with George Barrett and the Institute for Transport Studies at the University of Leeds, was commissioned by the Department for Transport to assess effects on subsequent speed reoffending. The team used speeding records from 13 police forces in England for 2012 to 2017, covering 2.2 million drivers, of whom 1.4 million had accepted an offer to take part. Records were matched to licence details, injury accident information and course provision data by the DVLA.
It was not a randomised trial. Instead, the researchers used two comparison groups: drivers who were offered the course but declined, and drivers detected at speeds marginally above the upper threshold for a course offer under police guidance. They used several analytical approaches, including regression analysis, propensity score matching, a regression discontinuity design and an instrumental variables method, to give greater confidence that differences reflected the course rather than differences between drivers.
What it found on reoffending
The report concluded that taking the course was more effective at reducing speed reoffending than a fixed penalty notice, which comprises a fine and penalty points, over the three years after the offer. It gave estimated reductions in the rate of reoffending of 12 to 23 per cent at six months, 9 to 17 per cent at one year, 9 to 11 per cent at two years and 6 to 13 per cent at three years, with the range reflecting the different analytical approaches. The effects appeared larger among drivers who had held a licence for longer.
The authors said that, as far as it is possible to assess within the constraints of the available data, the effects can be interpreted as a causal effect of the course, not a result of differences between drivers who took it and those who did not. The data did not allow assessment beyond three years.
What it did not show
The evaluation did not find a statistically significant effect of the course on the number or severity of injury collisions compared with a fixed penalty notice, though some results were on the border of significance. The report explained that injury collisions were rare, so the numbers available were too small for definitive conclusions, and said a national study may be needed. It described it as probable that the course has positive road-safety effects that could not be demonstrated, an inference from the link between reoffending and collisions rather than a measured result.
The reductions in reoffending are relative figures. The report gave an illustration: if the three-year reoffending rate for course participants was 21 per cent, a 10 per cent reduction would mean it would otherwise have been 23.3 per cent. The absolute difference is therefore small in percentage points, though it applies across a very large number of drivers.
Reading the findings sensibly
The design was quasi-experimental and used matched or threshold-based comparisons, so it is not proof in the way a randomised trial would be. The authors said the results were consistent across the different methods, and that is the basis for the conclusion. The findings also apply to the drivers the course was offered to, who were low-level speeders, and to the course as it was run in England during the study period, 2012 to 2017.
The report is also from 2018. Course content and eligibility rules may have changed since, and GOV.UK should be checked for the current position.
What this means for learners and new drivers
For new drivers, a course offered instead of points may keep the licence clear of penalty points, which is significant within the first two years. Drivers cannot assume they will be offered one, since GOV.UK says it depends on the police decision and on not having attended a course in the previous three years. Driving instructors and learners should treat speed limits as a first-lesson topic, not a matter of luck with enforcement.
The bottom line
A Department for Transport evaluation of more than a million course participants found that taking the National Speed Awareness Course reduced speed reoffending more than a fine and points over three years, and interpreted the effect as causal within the limits of the data. It did not demonstrate an effect on injury collisions because too few occurred. The course is offered at police discretion to low-level speeders, and it is not available to everyone.
Sources
- Department for Transport, GOV.UK, “National Speed Awareness Course: impact evaluation”
- Ipsos MORI and Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds (for the Department for Transport), “Impact Evaluation of the National Speed Awareness Course: Final Report (May 2018)”
- GOV.UK, “Speeding penalties”