A Christmas break and speeding penalty

It was only two months ago I had my Christmas break in Norfolk that had been especially planned with a great expectation. After coming out of the motorways around London, a sight of the large open fields caught my eyes. The fresh air of the endless fields was distinctively different from the polluted one in big cities. The relatively quiet and spacious roads tempted me to accelerate my driving spontaneously. But then the vast scenery of East Anglia was overwhelming that urged me to keep my cool and appreciate the surrounding views. The landscape was enough to seduce anyone with exuding the charms and calms combining with the luxurious resort nearby I was heading for.

A few days later since I returned home, received a letter and opened it casually.

“Crikey!” It was a speeding penalty notice that dampened at once my Christmas mood that was still lingering on. There were three choices that one could opt for either paying the fine and have 3 penalty points or attending an awareness course instead of 3 points taken or denying all those charges and face a court case. In Britain, a motorist is given 12 points in total when obtained a driving license. If your points of 12 have taken away by traffic contravention, your driving license is revoked irreversibly.

“Oh heck!” The arrival of the penalty notice was totally out of the blue and I was quite taken aback. It apparently happened in Norfolk on the day of returning home. It was first time I travelled through that region and the lack of road signs forced me not to exceed the speeding limits. People used to give me a compliment in saying what a good driver I was but I, this time, clearly failed to uphold that honour(?). My solicitor friend who was the passenger in my car at the time said, “It was strange. You were driving so slowly and I didn’t notice of you were over speeding at all, all the way up and on the return”.

No matter how many more years I’d have got in this world, applied for the retraining course in place of dropping three points down. The rules and regulations of the course appeared to be quite strict that made me a bit tense though, the lecturers actually welcomed us with open arms. They obviously had done the same course so many times and ran the course like a record player in speed. I didn’t expect much of it but was wrong that there had had lots of new things been added since I got my driving license a few decades ago.

However, the last words of the instructor touched me deeply. “The road traffics are expanding all the time and so are the rules and regulations. There are no other ways to sort them out but we drivers have to keep dealing with them”. “Wow, how far can we cope as the existing R&R are already more than enough to keep up with?” One day, I’ll of course have to give my driving up but how much longer I can continue driving until then, my heart felt so heavy in despair by the thoughts.

Needless to say, young ones will do much better with the constant changes than old folks. Then, they too, eventually reach the stage when their challenges are far too great to surmount. After all, the time may come when we all have to rely on AI help in driving by perhaps implanting an AI chip in our brain. Or even driverless vehicles which are now constantly being tested. However, these challenging issues made me change my mind in 180 degrees about the further AI development which I used to object to.

And, if an accident occurs in the driverless car while on the road, would it be the responsibility of AI or the car owner?