Thinking of travelling to or through France?

[Scott_rider]

Crikey...that was a large wedge to pay out!

When we got the speeding fine in the post from Luxembourg there was the usual online payment or appeal process to go through but the strange thing was that you can only ask for evidence of the offence (i.e. a photo or proof of camera calibration) by making a personal visit to the prosecutors at the office which issued the ticket, in this case that was Luxembourg city . Clearly, no-one would do that for a £45 fine unless you happened to be back in the area within the time period that was allowed for an appeal. Regardless of that, we asked them for a photo anyway and they wrote back to us within about 3 days threatening to increase the fine to £60 (I think) if we didn't pay by the deadline. And after that the fine goes up and up as more time passes without payment. At first we thought it might be a scam but apparently not, it's the law in Luxembourg. Maybe their citizens are more law-abiding than us Brits and just accept a fine and pay it, if they get one.

[daveuprite]

Crikey...that was a large wedge to pay out!

When we got the speeding fine in the post from Luxembourg there was the usual online payment or appeal process to go through but the strange thing was that you can only ask for evidence of the offence (i.e. a photo or proof of camera calibration) by making a personal visit to the prosecutors at the office which issued the ticket, in this case that was Luxembourg city . Clearly, no-one would do that for a £45 fine unless you happened to be back in the area within the time period that was allowed for an appeal. Regardless of that, we asked them for a photo anyway and they wrote back to us within about 3 days threatening to increase the fine to £60 (I think) if we didn't pay by the deadline. And after that the fine goes up and up as more time passes without payment. At first we thought it might be a scam but apparently not, it's the law in Luxembourg. Maybe their citizens are more law-abiding than us Brits and just accept a fine and pay it, if they get one.

That's perfectly normal in France. If you get, say, a 60 Euro fine then you get a time period to pay it after which it goes up to 90. I always just pay up a.s.a.p, take the lower fine and be glad that I don't get points (french authorities can't put points on a british licence).

BUT that's been the case until now as a UK passport holder resident in France with a UK driving licence. Since the brexit disaster all of us brits living here are having to exchange our driving licences for french ones as soon as the photo expires - at which point I will get points as well as fines... My exchange application is being processed as we speak, so there goes another nice little perk. And I've just gone and bought a motorbike that does 270kmh !

[simonw]

How does the points system work there in France, Dave? Is it the same sort of principal as the UK?

[daveuprite]

How does the points system work there in France, Dave? Is it the same sort of principal as the UK?

Yep, same principle, except that the points are subtracted rather than added !

So you start with 12 points and some of them get taken away every time you're naughty over a certain threshold of... naughtiness.

The only exception is for probationers - i.e. those who have only just passed their test. They get 6 points to start with and a couple of points are added every year if they're not naughty, until they are up to the same 12 points that all the other non-naughty people get.

Hope that makes some kind of sense...

If you are so naughty that you reach ZERO, you are dragged into the street, pelted with rotten garlic and stale camembert, and eventually guillotined - if you've been good.

[simonw]

Hope that makes some kind of sense...

It does, thanks. Thanks too for picking up on my schoolboy error, like a true principal.

[Cornishman]

I think it was an agreement between France and the UK that France could access the UK DVLA database if a UK registered vehicle got flashed by a speed camera BUT the UK could not access the French database if it was vica versa...i.e. a French registered vehicle flashed in the UK...a bizarre arrangement, but I'm fairly sure that was the case and I seem to remember one of the driving associations kicking off about it at the time... .

All I do know for sure is that we got flashed in France, somewhere near Reims, and in Luxembourg, somewhere near Luxembourg city, and on both occasions we got a letter a few weeks later and had to pay a fine.

Interesting. So there was some use of the DVLA database then.

Quick story from 1999. I was on a YZF750 with a mate on a ZX6R and another on a Fireblade. We rode down to Blois from the channel port, and then the road opened up into a kind of freshly tarmac'ed biker top speed run heaven. Nothing around, dry, fine weather - lovely. We went for it like a trio of loons. I was last of us three to go through the expertly hidden hand-held radar trap, so it was my speed that got recorded, but we were all pulled over about 5kms down the road.

230kph in a 90kph zone !! Ooops...

The flic was a nice guy actually, but we knew we were in pretty big doo-doo. This was in the days of Francs rather than Euros. He pulled out this little circular card thing. Do you remember them? We had them when we were kids. One disc has a set of figures on it and a little window. When you turn the disc a corresponding figure appears on a second disc below and shows in the window. He set the discs for 90kmh (for the road) and for 230kmh (my speed). In the little window the figure 5000 appeared. Aagghh! 5000 francs ! Which was about 500 quid sterling back then. Instant on the spot fine in cash, OR escorted to a cashpoint, OR confiscation of my bike.

We paid as a group of three, which was fair because we were all guilty as hell, and dolled out all our holiday cash into the gendarme's hand....

[Cornishman]

The reality of riding/driving in France is that there are huge stretches of road where you would be incredibly unlucky to be caught going a bit fast. The fixed cameras tend to be on main routes and the mobile radar units, in my experience, tend to be in or on the outskirts of built up areas. If you’re that worried their locations are published in local papers the week before.

[daveuprite]

Hope that makes some kind of sense...

It does, thanks. Thanks too for picking up on my schoolboy error, like a true principal.

I promise that never occurred to me Simon. Complete coincidence. Although I have a love of the English language, I write all the time, and I do admit to a somewhat pedantic adherence to the rules, I don't particularly like the police-state monitoring of infractions that some on the internet appear to enjoy. Show me a they're / their, however, and my blood boils...

[simonw]

I believe boil's is the modern way to spell that now

[Scott_rider]

Yes, I remember watching that video a few years ago of the riders getting a huge fine in Switzerland.

It gave me a clenched bottom moment because until I watched it I had no idea of the consequences of speeding in Switzerland and I’d just ragged a hire car Vauxhall Astra about 400 miles on the motorway and trunk roads from Innsbruck, Austria through Zurich and Basel, Switzerland to Eastern France in 6 hours to catch up the other riders after my CBF1000 had broken down the day before.

I didn’t even have the motorway vignette which I knew nothing about until a petrol attendant pointed it out at a service station.

They say ignorance is bliss but as I say I had a proper bottom clenching moment after I watched that video and realised the potential consequences of my foolishness.