The courses, which cost between £80 and £150, allow drivers to avoid penalty points on their licences. However, campaigners claim that this lulls many motorists into a false sense of
security that they do not have to declare the course to insurers, in the
hope their premiums will not rocket for a speeding-related offence.
However, insurers usually operate a “catch all” clause in their
policies about keeping them informed about factors which may affect your
driving, and failing to declare a course could lead them to cancel
cover in the event of an accident, experts said.
Ian Belchamber, a campaigner who runs an anti-speed camera campaign in
Dorset, said:
“The police’s actions are potentially resulting in people
driving uninsured because they haven’t told motorists to tell their
insurers about the speed awareness course.
I would make sure
your insurer knows you’ve been on a course regardless of whether they
specifically ask for that information.
If you are involved in
an accident and the insurer looks into your history and sees you’ve been
on a speeding course they could say ‘You didn’t tell us about this,
you’re not covered’.
The police don’t want people to know this because they make a lot of money out of the courses.”
The Telegraph
can confirm that two companies set up with close links to the
now-defunct Association of Chief Police Officers are now entwined with
the organisation’s successor, the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC).
An NPCC spokesman said Suzette Davenport, the chief constable
of Gloucestershire Police, sits on the board of the National Driver
Offender Retraining Scheme (NDORS), which registered a £44 million
turnover last year for providing safety awareness courses.
A director of NDORS is Meredydd Hughes, the former chief constable of
South Yorkshire, who was responsible for road policing at Acpo until he
was caught speeding at 90mph in a 60mph zone in 2007, and stepped down
from the role.
He is also a director of another company in the sector, Road Safety Support.
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