When it comes to speeding offences, I am clearly not very lucky. I have been caught again. This time, no Speed Awareness Course can be offered - it's too soon after the last one. No: it's a £100 fine and 3 points on my licence - a licence hitherto unblemished by penalty points since 1997. I confess to feeling criminalised. It will take four years before those 3 points expire. Four years of embarrassment.
It's hard not to feel a victim. I have to remind myself that the law is impersonal, and wasn't looking to catch me in particular. The police camera van operator didn't care who was recorded exceeding the speed limit. But anyone who did would face automatic consequences.
No doubt every driver who, like me, passed that camera van - and supposed, like me, that they were carefully keeping to the speed limit - has been similarly dealt with. We all made an error. The fact that the unwelcome outcome is not mine alone doesn't console me. It's hard not to feel unjustly treated. I do have the suspicion that road traffic offences prop up the 'successful prosecution' statistics. It's hard not to feel that the police and the courts ought to spend their overstretched energies on catching and punishing genuinely bad people. After all, like those other drivers, I was not acting recklessly, and I certainly wasn't disdainful of the speed limit or any other laws.
I simply made a mistake about what the speed limit was - as all of us did. It was a dual carriageway, where 70 mph usually applies. But the short stretch I turned into had a 60 mph limit. I thought I was doing the right thing, driving at 70 mph, but I was still 10 mph over the limit. And there were signs to tell me. I didn't notice them, but they were there. (After being notified of the offence, I went back there to check) So no excuses.
Well, I was earnest to make amends. I complied in every way with the police letters that came, and could not have paid up faster. But there was only small satisfaction in doing that. I was still stuck with a traffic offence on my police record. I suppose it's going to be there forever. One more item to add to the others.
The others?
Why yes. I've been caught speeding on three previous occasions, in 1993, 2014 and 2021. Every time, I didn't realise what the actual speed limit was. Every time, I was simply driving at the same speed as everyone else. Every time, there were signs to tell me the speed limit, had I observed them. No excuses.
And then there have been worse crimes. Being detained on the street in 2021, for taking a casual photo of the wrong place (Brighton Police Station). And of course the highly embarrassing Walking on the Wall incident in 1962, when Dixon of Dock Green came to the family front door, as described in my post Very Brainy Policemen and My Criminal Career on 15th December 2016.
So you see, I have some claim to being an Arch Criminal. Salacious reading, my police dossier.
But this time I don't feel like joking. I've had enough. I want no more police attention. It's the strait and narrow from on. And if I hold up the traffic and get hooted for not going faster, so be it.
