...relatively speaking!
The Saturday morning after the Wrinklies trip I was trundling up the A417 heading for home and was just passing the bend leading onto the mega mile straight by the Daglingworth exit. Now this straight is getting very dodgy as Glos Cops have got a camera with a long lens that can id the driver at 1100 metres and although I haven't stopped and used the binoculars to spec it out, what with the dips and crests in this stretch of the road I reckon that from their favourite parking spot at the far end of the straight in the lay-by at Granny's Pumps, they 'may' be able to get you all the way back here.
The Garmin was squawking like mad at me and I was saying 'I know, I bloody know, stop nagging me. I'm looking for the bloody thing! It isn't there...! Ah heFll...it's HERE!'
The car in front had been meandering all over the road and was slowing down so I had decided to pop past him. There was a bike coming up fast so I hoofed it and pulled in just in time to spot the bloody van hiding in the shade under a couple of trees. The bike behind me stood on it's nose as he realised why I was brake testing him and the clown in the car just carried on as if nothing was happening in front of him and nearly collected my rear bumper. Remember, I was doing a Brian and had gone down to Worthing in the car. If I'd been on the bike who knows what would have happened.
92 is my usual cruising speed so I was relieved to get the NIP saying I was only doing 88...
I wasn't sure what I was expecting and I have always said I wouldn't do a speed awareness course as a) I know what speed I'm doing and b) I wouldn't be able to keep my big mouth shut in class with all the bollox they spout.
So, a conditional offer of 3 points and £100 was a relief because a) it could have been a lot worse and b) they 'might' have offered me the course and then I 'might' have had to swallow my principles as it were.
Still, 20'odd years since the last NIP and I went to court and beat them that time so I figure I'm still ahead.
This is probably the Covid bonus. Courts are jammed to the rafters, no one wants to run a speed awareness course with only two socially distanced berks in the class, coughing and sneezing, so the conditional offer seems like a reasonable compromise.
I'll take that. And if you think you are due a NIP on the law of averages, now is not a bad time to get it in