What an aptly named place Hook junction is. My mind wandered for only a few seconds but that was enough to land me in peril. I was driving down the A3 and as the road narrowed from three lanes to two I failed to slow quickly enough. At the precise moment the road goes from a 70 to a 50 there is a camera and I had only slowed to 61 as I passed it. Captain Hook was not actually on the bridge above the speed camera yelling ‘ahaaaa, me hearties!’ in anticipation of his booty but he might as well have been. I have been driving on this road for ten years and have never made this mistake before. But that was not admissible as an excuse. Nor was the fact that my mind had only wandered because I was worrying about getting home before the teenage looters started marauding.
No matter. At the very moment the lawless yobs were getting stuck in, I was breaking the speed limit in my very own moment of madness. No prizes for guessing which one — yob or driver — would get the swiftest and most soul-crushing justice.
I wish a few of those delinquents had got the letter I did ordering me to pay £95 and enter myself on a humiliating driver improvement course, with all the nightmarish petty bureaucracy that entailed.
It would have frightened young Kaylee, Latisha and DeShaun far more than a judge telling them they might go to jail for a few days or have to do some community service.
Tell them they have to manage their own punishment by wading through endless forms and registering for courses and see how they shape up. Pretty quick, I would imagine.
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