Steve Canavan: Speeding straight into other people’s homes

I have made one car journey over the last three months, to my dear mother’s on her birthday in May, to go and sit in her garden and get nagged about the state of my facial hair.

Her words on my arrival were, ‘oh Steven, are you not going to do something about that scraggly mess on your chin? It looks stupid’ (she spat the last word with venom, as if she found me the most objectionable human on the planet).

“Happy birthday mum,” I replied, ‘I’m glad I drove 50 miles to come and spend it with you.”

Mild bickering aside, we had a very pleasant socially distanced few hours before we were ordered to leave because my mother had online bridge with Mary and Paul at 3 and nothing, and I mean nothing, comes between my mother and bridge.

If I were to befall a terrible accident and, say, lose three limbs in a paragliding accident, I get the feeling that if my mum were told about it between the hours of 3 and 4.30pm, she’d say, ‘that’s awful but can I get back to you in half an hour – I’m just making my opening bid’.

So I left, drove home, and went on with my life.

A couple of weeks later I received through the post a very pleasant letter from the police telling me I had been caught speeding and would be fined £100 and three points put on my licence.

This was a major blow because I’m not a rich man (a quick glance at my text message inbox would confirm this: I get a daily one from the Halifax telling me I’m overdrawn and being charged for it … it’s lovely of them to send such uplifting, cheery, everyday correspondence in these troubling times).

It was also mighty annoying as this had occurred on quite literally the only journey I have made during the entire lockdown period.

Plus – and I know what you’re thinking, everyone who gets caught speeding says it wasn’t fair, but… the road I had been caught on has been a 50mph limit since time immemorial but, unbeknown to me, the first mile of it had, in February, been lowered to 40. Granted I should have noticed this on the signs, but when you’ve driven a route at the same speed for 32 years it’s understandable why you might not notice a new speed limit – especially when you’ve got a three-year-old in the back who’s trying to smack her 15-month-old baby brother in the face because he’s stolen her toy Rapunzel figure.

Anyway, fair cop, I was doing 47 in this 40 zone, but was offered – as an alternative to a fine and points – a speed awareness course.

This was appealing because I was keen to educate myself about the dangers of driving and to brush up on the laws of the road – oh, and also it was only 80 quid and no penalty points.

And so it was that earlier in the week I had to log on to something called Zoom (which I’d hoped might be a child’s lollipop with chocolate and sprinkles on but disappointingly was actually some sort of online app) and spend two-and-a-half hours with a jolly but slightly threatening chap who talked to me and seven other folk about the laws of the road.

It was actually quite useful – I mean I never knew that any road with streetlights on is a 30mph limit unless otherwise stated, and the difference in the number of fatalities among people hit by a car at 30 and at 50 is genuinely shocking - but I’ve got to say the best thing about it was being able to look inside the homes of seven other people.

These were all folk like me who had been caught speeding but whereas my camera was set up so that the background was just the bedroom wall, others had their cameras in much more interesting positions.

For example, there was Carole, who in her kitchen had a large cage that contained a dog about the size of an elephant and which, at random intervals, went berserk and began barking and clawing at the bars as if eager to eat her. ‘Archie, shush. Stop it. How many times do I have to tell you?’ she’d say, just as our speed awareness man was in the midst of making an important point about potential hazards when approaching a roundabout.

When warned people can be expelled from the course, the woman hurriedly moved to a different part of her house.

A bloke called Martin was sat in his office where, in the background through a window, groups of men in yellow uniform and hardhats passed every so often and you’d occasionally hear a muffled shout of, ‘you’ve put bloody sugar in my brew again, how many time to do I have to tell you I’ve bloody well quit’.

Then there was another woman called Christine who had her lighting so low she was almost a silhouette – like she was being interviewed on a TV news channel about a sensitive topic and didn’t want her identity revealed. This was ingenious as it meant you couldn’t see if her eyes were open or not, so for all I know she spent the two hours having a pleasant nap (though, I should confess, this definitely wasn’t the case – she spoke loads so was clearly taking full part).

All of those on the course passed and we were asked at the end whether we had enjoyed the online experience. We all answered yes – and with good reason; it was a worthwhile educational experience – although I’m not sure Carole’s dog would agree.