I attended a speed awareness course in Swindon today.

I'd like to say this was entirely of my own volition as a contribution to road safety but the honest truth is I was caught speeding (36mph in a 30mph zone) and offered the chance to go to it instead of adding three points to my collection.

It was with some sense of trepidation I drove to the Hilton in Swindon. My daughter's boyfriend had told me horror stories of shame-faced speeders being tormented with pictures of car wrecks and confronted by disabled victims of boy racers' recklessness for three hours.

Nothing could have been further from the truth. The course was hosted by Andy and Alastair, two friendly driving instructors who are hired by the Road Safety Camera Partnership.

What surprised me most was my fellow course members, I had expected to be coralled in with a gaggle of male sales reps but seven of them were women and of those seven, five must have been in their fifties.

One of the ladies, a delightful soul from Wroughton, had received her speeding ticket just before her 80th birthday, much to the amusement of her family.

Another had been taunted by her husband, who had repeatedly downloaded the speed camera picture of her breaking the law from the safety camera partnership's web site. How cruel is that?

There was something quite surreal about sitting with all these nice ladies, sipping Earl Grey tea and nibbling a shortbread, and discussing our letters of intended prosecution from the chief constable.

I had also expected to be preached at with the consequences of speeding and to be fair there was some of that. We were bonbarded with some questionable and rather simplistic statistics about how each of the 3,500 deaths on the road in the UK in 2005 had cost the taxpayer £1.6 million. Each.

I found this hard to swallow, as was the assertion that excessive speed is to blame for two thirds of accidents. Surely other people doing stupid thing is more accountable?

Equally far-fetched was a discussion about the consequences of speeding. Alastair asked for suggestions, which he scribbled on a flip chart. It began with death and prosecution and quickly progressed to job loss, marital break-up and mental illness as the rest of the group got carried away with doom-laden portents of ill for the miscreant driver.

I was wondering how quickly it would get to pestilence and Third World famine but decided not to suggest them myself for fear Alastair would boot me out and hand my three points back.

What did resonate with me was a discussion about the Highway Code. It quickly emerged that I, having not glanced at a copy since I passed my test in 1986, had no more knowledge of what is in it than I do the Koran.

There have been several revisions since I passed my test and the last one, published last year, alone had 29 new sections added.

It probably bears as much resemblance to the copy I learned from 22 years ago as a PC manual does to a 1986 Olivetti typewriter.

But in that time roads have become umpteen times busier and cars are umpteen times faster and more complex. The only thing that has stayed the same (or maybe even deteriorated) is my brain.

Beforehand I was in two minds whether these courses really work but to educate has to better than purely punishing people.

I had gone in full of self-justification about how my misdemeanour had just been a momentary lapse of concentration and how unfair it all was.

Three hours later I came away with a very real sense that it is my foot on the pedal and the buck stops with me.

It was a slow, careful journey into work afterwards...