by Henry VIII is caught doing thirty six in a thirty zone and spends a Saturday morning atoning for it in a conference room
I once settled disputes through trial by combat, a system with genuine drama and a clear winner. I settled a speeding matter through a four hour course in a Travelodge conference room, and there was no winner at all.
The Offer
The letter informed me I had been recorded travelling at thirty six miles per hour in a thirty zone, and offered me a choice between points on my licence or attendance at a speed awareness course, a genuinely civilised alternative I accepted immediately, believing it would be brief. It was not brief.
The Room
Twenty two of us sat in a windowless conference room arranged in a horseshoe, name badges provided, biscuits offered exactly once and never replenished, presided over by a facilitator named Graham who clearly took the material seriously and clearly expected us to take it seriously too, a request several attendees, myself included, initially struggled with.
The Confession Circle
Graham asked each of us in turn to explain why we believed we had been speeding, a public confession format I recognised instantly from certain ecclesiastical proceedings I once personally oversaw, minus the burning, and I explained honestly that I was late for a gig and had simply lost track of the number on the speedometer, a confession Graham received with the exact patient disappointment I recall from several bishops.
The Statistics
Graham presented statistics on stopping distances that genuinely unsettled me, numbers I had not previously considered, illustrated with a slide showing the exact additional metres a car travels before stopping at various speeds, information I found more persuasive than any sermon delivered against me in either century, largely because it involved no threat of eternal damnation, only maths, which is harder to argue with.
The Certificate
By the end of the four hours I had genuinely reconsidered my relationship with the accelerator, received a certificate confirming attendance, and exchanged numbers with a woman named Julie who had been caught at exactly the same speed on the exact same road the following week, a coincidence we both found darkly funny. I have not exceeded thirty miles per hour since. I have also not stopped thinking about Graham’s slide about stopping distances, which is, I suppose, precisely the point.
The Aftermath
Julie and I have stayed in touch since the course, comparing notes on our respective driving habits with the wary solidarity of two people who survived the same ordeal. Graham emailed the group a week later thanking us for our participation and reminding us, gently, that the course does not exempt us from future speed checks, a warning I have taken considerably more seriously than most warnings issued to me in my original reign.
Graham’s final slide, which I still think about more than I would like to admit, simply read drive like someone you love is crossing the road, a sentence with more genuine moral weight than most sermons I sat through in my original lifetime. Graham’s stopping distance slide has stayed with me longer than most lessons since the jousting accident. Further reading on the wider chaos of modern Britain: five officers injured attempting to overtake a stationary London landmark, the original account of my own return to Britain, the pub that finally made me feel properly at home again.
