Thinking of travelling to or through France?

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Thinking of travelling to or through France?

Post by Cornishman »

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Re: Thinking of travelling to or through France?

Post by daveuprite »

Thanks David. I was thinking about posting this too.

It's been a complete mess, but perhaps gradually returning to the 90kmh nationwide standard. A good example of how something that affects every journey made by car/bike/lorry must have the same law across the entire country, not a patchwork of changeable limits decided at a local level.

In my experience most french law makes somewhat more sense than the UK version, but not in this case.
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Re: Thinking of travelling to or through France?

Post by Cornishman »

I’m going to see a friend later. If I go on the main road it’s a 40km journey along one road, the part in the Vienne is 80km/h, when I get into the Charente it’s 90. If I go on the smaller back road it’s 100km/h the whole way. 🙂
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Re: Thinking of travelling to or through France?

Post by daveuprite »

Cornishman wrote: Tue Nov 30, 2021 9:13 am I’m going to see a friend later. If I go on the main road it’s a 40km journey along one road, the part in the Vienne is 80km/h, when I get into the Charente it’s 90. If I go on the smaller back road it’s 100km/h the whole way. 🙂
Yeah, if I use the D951 to get to Steve's house I pass from 80kmh in Haute Vienne to 90kmh in Charente. I'm sure you use that road sometimes too. Although it's a D-road it's a big road used by loads of trucks cutting across from Bordeaux/Angouleme to the A20 - lots of lorries with Portuguese registrations. The 80kmh limit is really irritating. Just that small 10kmh difference once you get into Charente makes the whole road flow better. And then there's that bloody camera in Champeaux waiting to get you...
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Re: Thinking of travelling to or through France?

Post by Scott_rider »

That's complicated :o .
As a matter of interest, now that the UK is out of the EU is there still the arrangement that France can access the UK DVLA database to pursue motoring offences committed in France by UK registered vehicles?
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Re: Thinking of travelling to or through France?

Post by Tonibe63 »

Scott_rider wrote: Tue Nov 30, 2021 11:33 am That's complicated :o .
As a matter of interest, now that the UK is out of the EU is there still the arrangement that France can access the UK DVLA database to pursue motoring offences committed in France by UK registered vehicles?
Asking for a friend? ;)
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Re: Thinking of travelling to or through France?

Post by Scott_rider »

Tonibe63 wrote: Tue Nov 30, 2021 11:49 am

Asking for a friend? ;)
:lol: ...fortunately, no!

We usually factor in 1 or 2 speeding fines in the cost of our trips through France, and latterly Luxembourg, each year...but we haven't been since 2019 due to obvious reasons and of course the UK is now out of the EU since then so I wondered if the arrangement had changed?

p.s. I know it's not big and it's not clever...before anyone shoots me down in flames...
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Re: Thinking of travelling to or through France?

Post by daveuprite »

Dunno the answer to that Scott. Did the DVLA and Nantes ever really get their ducks in a row over this? Not sure. I don't know any brits who got flashed in France and then punished back at home in the UK, but that certainly doesn't mean it didn't happen. I'm not sure there was ever an EU wide reciprocation - I think it was more bilateral agreements between countries. I read some article about 3 years ago about some kind of rich kids' cannonball run - type of thing where british reg'd Lambos and Ferraris etc were being thrashed around on french autoroutes - and the gendarmes had camped out to catch them near Calais, but don't know if that led to just a fine on french territory or something posted to them at home later via DVLA.

Maybe other members would like to admit to some healthy indiscretions to give us the latest on this.... :lol:
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Re: Thinking of travelling to or through France?

Post by Scott_rider »

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, which was a bummer :( .
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Re: Thinking of travelling to or through France?

Post by daveuprite »

Scott_rider wrote: Tue Nov 30, 2021 2:10 pm 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.... :lol:
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