Caught speeding in France, be warned

Just spent 2 weeks over there, come back to an official letter asking for 45 Euros for doing 122kmh on a 110kmh route, right time, right place. Fair cop I suppose and I’ll settle soon I guess. Unlike the old days when unless you got stopped by a person for an on the spot fine, you could get away with being flashed by cameras and ignore, it seems since 2017 they can access DVLA info and get you, and pursue if you don’t pay next time you are over there. And they are really pursuing a lot I’m told before 31st Oct comes around. Dread to think how many others I’ll get in next few weeks as this one was on the first day. Bear in mind if going over for the summer holidays, really stick to speed limits (some of which have dropped a bit, certainly around towns), don’t drift over as as I did (on a nice clear straight traffic free road) etc.

stick to speed limits

Perennial good advice

Thanks for the warning. Seriously. I would never mean to speed, but the fact is that I often find it hard to tell when the limit changes between towns and motorways – especially beween Calais and Lille.

The thing I always grapple with is the 130/110kph limit on the motorway. When is it “raining”, and thus the lower limit is in force? Is it drops falling from the sky? Damp roads? Puddles and spray?

Just a fine? No points? Not a big disaster.

My brother living in the USA hired a car in Italy and blundered twice into the car free centre of Lucca. Nothing happened until the followig year when he hired another car in Italy and very shortly after returning home, he received two fines by post. I advised him to pay them in case he ever wanted to return to Italy.

Just a fine? No points? Not a big disaster.

I believe that’s how it works in France, moderate speeding is a small fine €45, faster is €180 and finally €375 there’s no points for UK drivers.

Despite the relatively new law allowing them to even chase UK nationals for fines, they’re supposedly not doing very much of it from cameras.

If you’re determined to ‘make progress’ then try to avoid being caught by the Police, they use marked and unmarked cars and they hide their road side traps a lot better, if you’re caught by an actual Copper and not a camera they can and will take you straight to an ATM to pay the fine and if you’re caught doing stupid speed (50km over the limit) they can ban you immediately for 6 months and impound your car, in miles that’s doing 110mph+ on the motorway, you’d expect to have the book thrown at you in the UK for that, the only added complexity for tourists of course is it makes it a bit tricky to actually get home, there have been stories of people having to pay big wedges of cash to release their cars and have them transported to the port.

TBH I love driving in France, for me 80 (130Kph ish) is the best compromise between actually completing a massive drive and fuel economy and it works because the roads are much quieter so it’s nice, easy, constant progress. I almost never speed because what’s the point? Every car I’ve ever owned economy falls through the floor over 80, even on the Alps run, you’re only going to add more fuel stops to your journey.

There’s always the ‘foreign police’ fear tourists seem to have, but they’re not out to ‘get’ Brit like so many Daily Mail readers thing, frankly given how much UK Tourists take the piss driving through France they’re remarkably relaxed about it.

I will admit though, it’s hard to know what the limit it away from the motorways and towns sometimes. I got flashed between Geneva and Morzine last summer, didn’t get a ticket, but equally didn’t have a clue what the limit was really.

Just use a satnav with speed display – google maps has just added this, but Waze and others do it. Just beware that ones that show cameras etc as they are frowned upon

Read in French press, they are chasing UK drivers a lot more till 31st of orctober.
You get a point for small offense.

Just beware that ones that show cameras etc as they are frowned upon

Who actually does the frowning upon ?

Perennial

Perennial weed smoking more like and there was me believing that this topic would have been created by “Alpin” 🤣

Are there different limits for different vehicles like in the UK? I’m heading over in a few weeks in our van (Renault Trafic).

My Waze pings the minute I exceed the limit plus it warns you about police up ahead and i can’t count how many jams it’s got us round. The only time I got caught out was when I ignored the advice. It’s excellent and free.

Just beware that ones that show cameras etc as they are frowned upon

More than that, illegal and a pretty hefty fine and potential confiscation of device and/or vehicle!

http://www.theaa.com/motoring_advice/overseas/radar-detectors-in-france.html

Includes apps that can show them. Grey area on just disabling the feature and how you prove that. Might have to ensure it’s a camera free database update for France, but again how is this proven?

Unlike the Spanish, the Italians WILL chase you – unless you write a letter to a specific man, in Italian, explaining why you shouldn’t be fined. If he disagrees you pay an increased fine and possibly all legal charges. At that point I stopped calling their bluff 😀

Reading into the October comments, does that mean that we’re in the clear if we leave the EU? Potentially the first actual benefit I’ve heard of that could relate to me!

BillMC

Member
My Waze

Not 100% reliable but certainly helps. We get a lot of un-marked utes parked under bridges and in bushes with camera gear in the back. But they only get flagged up once someone has spotted them and made an alert on WAZE!

Break law in a way that may endanger other road users, get caught, get fined, complain/comment on how you can’t get away with it any more.

I recently had some of these for a similar reason to others, ignorance, there is a whole area on a peage I regularly drive on that is 90 not 110/130, the signage is misleading and I still don’t understand it.
45e is less bother than trying to argue the toss in someone else’s lingo. The problem is they take a month or so to arrive so I carried on for about a month until I got the first one. we are two weeks in….

cynic-al

Break law in a way that may endanger other road users, get caught, get fined, complain/comment on how you can’t get away with it any more.

Is there anyone doing that on this thread?

Just use a satnav with speed display – google maps has just added this, but Waze and others do it.

TomTom was doing this on their app at least three years ago, as were CoPilot and Here, IIRC; nice to see Google have finally caught up, though…

And Garmin even before that!

Thats unlucky OP, I’ve done my fair amouunt of driving in France and never been caught. I find that its sometimes hard to speed in France since drivers will break well before a speed camera and stay on that speed for at least another 2 minutes.

As some have already suggested a Satnav or a satnav app is really the best option. I have used Waze and really can’t fault it, I know in one of my roadtrips around Spain it was a life saver. It shows you the legal speed of the road, were speed cameras are positioned and also if there are any hazards on the road-such as vehicles stopped on the side.

To add a secondary warning, don’t forget that all single carriageway roads are now 80, not 90, regardless of what the sign says. I got a fine for 86 in what I thought was 90 🙁

Speed camera warning devices (including Sat nav with warning on) are illegal to be carried in a car in France. Confiscation of car and a €1500 fine potential penalty

I like Waze for its speed limit display – I don’t miss the signs entering a 50 or a 70 etc but tend to miss the signs leaving the zone, unsure if I can speed up again or not.
OTOH, it’s also used to warn of spot checks. Here in Spain the police set up alcohol/drug controls at various places on weekend mornings, after lunch etc and pull over random drivers.
These get flagged up on Waze and Whatsapp groups so people driving back from the out of town discotecas or boozy lunches can navigate around them.

Reading into the October comments, does that mean that we’re in the clear if we leave the EU? Potentially the first actual benefit I’ve heard of that could relate to me!

If there is no deal, then there will be no legal framework for pursuing fines from the EU into the UK. But there will also be no deal to allow UK license holders to drive in the EU, so you will not be able to drive there legaly.

Reading into the October comments, does that mean that we’re in the clear if we leave the EU? Potentially the first actual benefit I’ve heard of that could relate to me!

Probably, until someone decides that EU drivers speeding in the UK should really be pursued for fines and prosecutions. So a reciprocal arrangement is brokered… Rinse and repeat for lots of other things and we’re back to a pretty similar situation to being in the EU. Essentially the net effect of Brexit will be pointless in the long term… bar our trade deals that are hugely in the favour of the US/China/EU, as the UK is such a small party in comparison.

Yes it’s really handy that the limits were reduced but local councils didn’t have any money available to change the signs over
🙄

Luckily 110Kph is pretty aspirational for my van on even the largest peage … takes a geological age to get to the south!

Reading into the October comments, does that mean that we’re in the clear if we leave the EU? Potentially the first actual benefit I’ve heard of that could relate to me!

If so, the French will target British plates and hit them with on the spot fines or confiscation. On the spot can mean dragging you to the nearest cash point if you don’t have the cash, or seize the car until you pay up.

It’s not unknown for them to be waiting at toll booths for speeding Brits. They might do the same at the tunnel (assuming the tunnel is still open).

I have set up Strava segments for all French motorways. I have live alerts for Strava segments on a dash mounted Garmin. Do I get live updates to judge if I’m speeding

Just use a satnav with speed display – google maps has just added this, but Waze and others do it.

This all over.

However, don’t like Waze (horrible cartoon like display, bleating about a car stopped on the hard shoulder, someone saw a police car an hour ago.

So Google Maps – but I’m not seeing the speed display. Is it a setting somewhere? is it on all versions of the app? not on the CarPlay version?

Reading into the October comments, does that mean that we’re in the clear if we leave the EU? Potentially the first actual benefit I’ve heard of that could relate to me!

If there is no deal, then there will be no legal framework for pursuing fines from the EU into the UK. But there will also be no deal to allow UK license holders to drive in the EU, so you will not be able to drive there legaly.

It’s all very much up in the air but EU membership is not the defining legislation – being signed up to the EU Motor Directive (which many non-EU countries are) is. The last report I saw said that there were discussions ongoing as to whether the UK are immediately excluded from that when Brexit happens or not based purely on the fact that we were members when we signed up to it and that that agreement was slightly different to the one non-members signed up to.

The M20 in Kent currently has half of ‘Operation Brock’ (the solution to traffic management if Brexit causes cross channel travel to slow down considerably or even stop) with a 50mph limit & average cameras London bound. A decision was taken some weeks back to not pursue foreign drivers caught by these cameras which has resulted in plenty of EU registered HGV’s barreling along the outside of two narrow lanes on their limiters. It seems our friends across the channel are not so accommodating at present for some reason.

Well a mate in one more of the vehicles on our trip has now received 2 tickets as well, one for 45 and one for 90 Euros, all of ours were on the main drag out of Cherbourg heading towards Brittany, nice clear dual carriageway / motorways. Wonder how many more we’ll get in the next week or so now we’re back. Lesson learnt, don’t stray not even 10% over the limit over there. Now await the usual holier than thou comment from a certain poster.

Bloomin EU! Can’t even go there and get away with breaking their laws anymore. What’s the world coming to?