On this side of the pond, it's called a bribe.

FIRST LINE OF TFA: Drivers who attend a speed awareness course instead of taking a fine and points on their licence may see their insurance premiums increase

flamemitter: British police allow drivers to keep speeding tickets off their records in return for an extra fee

/DERP

leevis: lenfromak: On this side of the pond, it's called a bribe.

It's called a deferrment and it's legal, at least in Indiana. I got a ticket a couple years ago and kept it off my record. As long as you're willing to pay a few extra bucks, have a clean record for a certain amount of time previously, and don't get anymore tickets for the next six months, the points stay off your license

In California, you can take a driving school (in person or online) to keep most minor tickets off your record. You can do it only once every 18 months though.

Does subby know the difference between road safety course and bribe?

"The insurance group says its statistics (that they pulled out of their ass) show that drivers who have attended a course, pose a higher risk."

I took a driving course last year because it saves you 10% on insurance, and I haven't so much as spoken to a cop in well over a decade.

Look, if you self-report something to the insurance company it will affect you. Perhaps they will raise your rates, perhaps they will opt to non-renew your contract at the end of the current policy year. What the police need to say is that they do not report attendees to the insurance companies, unlike speeding violations which they do. And seal that portion of their legal record so that the companies can't get at it.

Without ironclad agreements with all insurers, the police should not suggest that anything would not impact insurance rates.

As a non-driver, I am OK with this.

I can totally see the insurance industry's point. From the industry's point of view, letting bad drivers off without charging them points or fines is "noise" in the system they use to assess risk of insuring drivers.

The insurance companies will thus be obliged to pay for more accidents (and incidentally, so will the public be at risk from those same accidents and higher insurance costs to cover them).

The insurance companies are making bets against the drivers, and the police and courts are queering the odds and payouts. The insurance companies are like bookies, taking bets against horse. If the police and courts let lame horses "win", count horses that pass the finish line without their jockeys, and so forth, it costs the insurance companies big money--and profits.

Let me make one thing perfectly clear: I hate insurance companies. They are bastards. But I like the way they think.

If the police and courts let people off cheap, the insurance companies pay. They also lose by there being a lot more bad drivers on the road. So do we all. So it is natural for insurance companies to be willing to invest in safety features, safety training, safety awareness, and so forth. A little money spent reforming a drunk driver or a smoker is money in the bank, or would be if they weren't investing it directly themselves.

Insurance companies in many ways are the for-profit guardians of the public. They want us to be safe, not because they love us, but because we are cash cows. It's a bad master who abuses his livestock and slaves.

So insurance companies are among the best-informed risk managers in the world. They want to know what the real odds are so they can profit from the difference between what we risk and what we are willing to pay to avoid risk.

Here is one of the most telling truths about climate change: insurance companies are against it. They have stopped insuring properities on sandbars and flood plains. They have stopped insuring a lot of buildings and people in places where climate change will produce worse storms, hurricanes, floods, droughts, tornados, etc.

Although the Government insists on making insurance companies pay out to people who insist on re-buildng over and over again in disaster-prone places, they are paying the difference to keep the stupid safe and happy. They are paying for all sorts of expensive life-saving and property-defending measures and they are basically providing the insurance companies with re-insurance against the very threats they are denying in public.

Follow the insurance money, and you find the truth: risks rise with population and the property put at state, but they are also rising with climate change. It is fossil fuel companies, asbestos, and tobacco that are filling our heads with denialist nonsense. The Pentagon, the insurance companies, and even a few of the more progressive, go-ahead companies in other fields, even fossil fuel research and development heavy corporations, are acknowledging the risks. AND THEY PUT THEIR MONEY WHERE THEIR MOUTHS ARE, or rather, their mouths where the money comes from. Kiss. Kiss.

We have this in AZ. Every 24 months you can take a class that wipes speeding tickets if you were less than 20mph over. NJ has a non moving violation you can plea bargain for that costs more than a speeding ticket. Courts like it because the insurance points are the reason most people show up in court to contest it and speeding tickets are just revenue generation.

Sucks for the UK folks and I hope this doesn't catch on in the US.

St. Louis used to have a thriving ticket plea bargain industry.

Get a ticket? No problem. Pay about $100 to hire a traffic lawyer who will turn your $80 speeding ticket which is a moving violation into a $120 ticket for excessive muffler noise and your insurance company is none the wiser.