A rather official looking letter landed on the doormat. It was from Dorset Police telling me I had been captured on camera in Poole, marginally exceeding the speed limit. They must have got the wrong car or even worse perhaps someone had been joy riding my car, I thought. Then I remembered driving through Poole on my way to Bournemouth a few weeks ago. I had three children in the back, we were late for a Pantomime and I was suffering from severe bouts of morning sickness. Unfortunately, the police were disinterested in my excuses and invited me on one of their Driving Awareness Courses.
At first, I kept quiet about my shameful ticking off but then my daughter discovered the letter and quizzed me about it over her cornflakes one morning. “Does that mean you’re going to prison?” asked my son. I explained that sometimes grown-ups get in trouble and have to get told off too.
I barely slept the night before the course. With my pregnancy hormones on full throttle, I worried about getting lost and turning up late for the course or worse – getting a speeding ticket en route. I arrived promptly in front of some large security gates. “Here for driving awareness?” bellowed a uniformed man. “Yes,” I replied rather sheepishly. Inside Reception, people sat around with their name stickers slapped to their chests, staring in humiliation at the ground. We were all there for the same reason. I felt like pleading, “Please let me go home. I’ve got three children and I was always good at school.”
The morning was spent in a classroom listening to various statistics on speeding. Then it was time for the various shocking film clips. We were given the option to leave the room if we found it too upsetting but none of us dared. No sooner had the film clip begun with a mother driving her son to school, I could feel the tears coming. I desperately tried to hold it together but my hormones were shrieking, “I’m a pregnant woman, get me out of here.” Even if they had shown us a clip from Animal Hospital I would have blubbed uncontrollably. Thank goodness for the cups of tea and, in my case, a handful of biscuits, which got me through it.
I arrived home exhausted and a little shell shocked. I popped my head round my son’s bedroom door. “Hi Mummy. Did you sit in a cell all day?” he asked. He almost seemed a little disappointed to hear about the classroom. As I closed the door he shouted, “I told all my class and my teachers that you were spending the day with the police.” Yes - I thought you might have.
