Hello,

I am driving over from the alps to near Norwich on Sunday with the Thingies. What do I need to have with me/know/ do?

How does the Dartford crossing work now after getting a surprise fine in a hire car for not paying when I last drove in the UK?

Bringing our French registered T6.I plan to just blind you all when I drive at night. Can I speed and get away with it? I have a french licence.

Do I and Thingy 1 ( both British passports) and Thingy 2 (French passport) need visas or ‘owt?

*slightly tongue in cheek, but it has been a fair few years since I drove over so some sense could be useful….

we drive on the right side of the road over here

Small detail as I remember the roads are generally very small? So it doesn’t really matter.

Get some headlight stickers. 1 problem solved.

I don’t know what is not a problem due to small roads though?

Don’t forget the Sh!t’Air certificate for your smoky diesel

Interesting: google maps directions from ‘France’ to ‘United Kingdom’ take you to Scotland……right through London…..

like this

You can pay DartCharge ahead of your journey through.
While Frenchies are more nuts drivers, us Brits are really aggressive. You won’t believe how busy our South Eastern roads are.

Do you have to still pay in advance for the dart charge then? You know, in France we have this amazing system….

Anyway…what’s the likeliehood of them chasing me with french plates? Surely they must be swamped with non UK residents who don’t understnad it and find it crazy.

You can pay after crossing on line. I can’t remember if you have until midnight or 24hrs. Why not ggole it?

Bit short on humour today aren’t we?

Ok I shall google it. No harm done. Just a bit bored and wanted some banter.

I did appreiate this whole thread was humorous and hopefully my replies have been in similar vein.

Looks like you are free to carry on speeding on French plates though

However, a quirk of the European law will create a “one-way” system in which Europeans caught speeding in the UK cannot be pursued by British police.

😆

Watch out for potholes, we have a few of them over here … some big enough to shatter teeth/loose small hatchbacks!

You’ll be able to get Gauloises near Dover but the further you get into England the harder it is. Once you get far from London this sort of thing will happen: https://m.thevintagenews.com/2017/01/13/the-monkey-who-was-convicted-of-being-a-french-spy-and-was-hanged-by-the-citizens-of-hartlepool/

Sacre coq. Wish I was venturing upto what I consider to be my UK home, Sheffield. But only going as far as North Norfolk where I lived until I left for Uni to let the Thingies spend some time with their grandparents.

I might accidentally put my road bike in the back, after all the grand-children and grand parents need to bond by themselves a bit.

Also, it would seem convenient now I have suitable transport to bring my 250 MZ over to France finally! Promised male thingy we would have a look through my old fishing kit as well to see if there is anything suitable for us back home.

Looking forward to: real beer, fish and chips, bewilderwood, pootling along the back lanes of my childhood……

Look out for Audis.

Do you have to still pay in advance for the dart charge then? You know, in France we have this amazing system….

Nope, you can pay after the event.
Mrs_OAB paid one after and one before online on her phone as we drove to Dover. Really easy.

Headlamp converters…you don’t need them I think. You weird Euro drivers have a symmetrical beam pattern whereas us islanders have asymmetric headlights to light up our quaint narrow lanes.

(I think)

Pay for the Diesel and the channel crossing by befriending some hitchhikers in Calais. Going rate a few grand I would have thought. 😳

Apparently, it used to be considered illegal to drive a foreign registered car here, on a British licence (actually if resident), but I believe that might have been ‘clarified’. Worth checking if you’re in that position as there’s no way I would trust a police officer to know the law, and arguing without evidence might be futile.

I have a french licence and a french car. I’m speeding everywhere and not paying for Dart. Are there any nice campsites near Calais?

Does anyone bother with headlamp (what a quaint word) converters anymore?

I either go ghetto with some duck tape on the lenses or as most modern cars allow you to change the angle of the beam just point them a bit lower than usual

Permission to drive like an utter knobber, most Brits are too awkward to speak to someone, let alone someone that might speak a foreign language. Used to have a guy working for me who brought a van back from Germany, no tax, no MoT, no insurance, fast as he liked, double yellows, bits falling off. Never stopped or questioned.

Only the Dutch seem to drive slow around here, think that is because everyone knows they speak better English than those born here.

Using your French credentials, you can probably fill the van with baccy and claim personal use for the 3 of you.

Of course you need a visa, or you will when we’ve got our country back 😛

Dart Crossing. OP well they don’t chase French registered cars for the congestion charge

Ça roule…..200 odd km to Calais. Belgium drivers all drive like…..Well Belgium drivers…braking on the autoroute and causing everyone to panic….

Dart Crossing. OP well they don’t chase French registered cars for the congestion charge

They do for the Dart Charge…. and the Low Emission Zone in London.

A few years back we drove over the bridge twice on our way to Essex and back. A letter came through, in German (although it seemed as though some grade D GCSE student had written it), a few months later wanting 220€ for the two crossings. I was right peeved.
Turned it over and in tiny print on the back of said “seeing as this is your first crossing we will accept 4€ for each crossing”.

Not sure what would have happened had we ignored the letter, but for 8€ I was happy to be rid of the stress.

Similar happened with the LEZ. Drove directly into London to visit my mum in hospital. Checked online that our van wasn’t eligible (built after 2006, Euro 4), paid the congestion charge.

Again a month later we receive a letter (I assume written by the same 16 yr old GCSE grade D student) saying that we had to register the van with the LEZ people to prove it wasn’t eligible for a fine.
Spoke to the a helpful fella at TFL and he said that we essentially had 28 days grace and could ignore the letter if we weren’t going to be driving the van into London again.

The LEZ is basically anything inside of the M25… 🙄

Agree re Belgium drivers. Some really sketchy driving there. Random lane changing/drifting. Tailgating. Complete lack of speed awareness – constantly overtaking and then being overtaken despite me having the Cc set to 110kph….

Are there any nice campsites near Calais?

I remember staying at a lovely campsite just outside Calais when we were kids. However Calais appears to be a lot more popular with campers these days so it might not be as quiet now

Hmmm. We appear to be in the north…so chips from chip van for dinner! I can let people know by pm one campsite to avoid near St. Omer…..