 Poster: A snowHead
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I don't think we have just been "unlucky", as I've driven in and around France many times. And on at least 50% of my trips I've had at least one long journey extended by the queues just to get through the peage barriers.
The same was true coming back from VT on Saturday. I expected a queue at the Chambery barriers simply due to a large number of Brits, Belgians and French holidaymakers leaving their ski resorts at / around breakfast time, and as expected we had something of a 30 minute delay there.
But then again at Reims, after a good few hours of quite quiet traffic on the autoroute and taking it easy (lunch stops etc) we had at least 1 hour delayed at the Reims toll barriers, seemingly caused by nothing else other than the toll barriers themselves. None of the lanes were moving through quickly (fast-tag or not), it was just the volume of traffic it seemed.
Much as the autoroutes are a dream to drive down, particularly at quiet times like late evening / through the night / early mornings, it is starting to feel like the toll system just doesn't cope with heavier traffic, and you end up losing the time gained simply by queuing. This surely must have occured to the French too (and be experienced most by them, by definition). Is it something they are concerned about? Or do they just shrug it off?
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Mostly a gallic shrug - they seem to have grown up with it - just as they expect to queue for ever on the 'Grand Depart' Saturdays in Jul/Aug instead of going on a Sunday.
It also seems to me that a higher proportion of British cars have a doofer compared with French ones which would reduce queues dramatically. perhaps they don't want to put fellow workers out of a job.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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We've never bothered with a doofer (tag?) on the basis that the queues that bother us are the ones which stretch out more than 1km before the barriers anyway, so there's nothing gained - the tag doesn't let you skip through two lanes of traffic. I'm sure with some cunning use of RN routes instead we could have avoided the worst of the queues (especially in the sat nav days), I suppose I was just surprised that the French themselves haven't cottoned on to this either!
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@larkim, I have been doing the trip to the alpes by car upto 3 times a year for over 20 years and never encountered a queue at a toll booth. You must be getting all my share. Normally it is a choice of about a dozen empty lanes.
@chocksaway,
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It also seems to me that a higher proportion of British cars have a doofer compared with French ones which would reduce queues dramatically. perhaps they don't want to put fellow workers out of a job.
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You are possibly correct about proportions. Perhaps the French are a bit more careful with money. However I am not sure what "fellow workers" you are on about. It cannot take many to fill and empty the machines with pieces of cardboard.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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| Quote: |
West Wittering beach on a sunny Saturday
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@pam w, I think its worse on a Sunday! And I don't think that it has speeded up very much since they brought in the vehicle recognition system. Which reminds me that I had a reminder e mail the other day to renew my season ticket for WW. I usually am there by 9 if I am going on a Sunday morning. Leave by about 11.30 or 12.
I am very surprised at how many French cars don't have a doofer. Its only something like 1.5 euros on the months that you actually use it - otherwise no charge. They are though particularly useful to us UK right hand drivers who are either travelling on their own and don't have to get out and round the car, or who have a sleeping passenger.
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The badges are ok until you get something like Chambery on Wednesday when all the high speed lanes are out of action (again) and there are only a couple of other lanes open with people fumbling for change or CC. It is a shower really.
As for the French. They love sitting in traffic jams... otherwise the retired Parisian who could travel any day he liked to the south coast to stay in a hotel (where you don't have the Alpine Sat/Sat culture) would not still travel on a Saturday to sit in hours of tailbacks. It is a cultural thing.
as for the 1.5 euro / month charge, the autoroute company should be paying me 1.5 euros a month!
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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@johnE, I was talking about the manned booths - which have admittedly started to disappear quite quickly as the French have been weaned onto Bank Cards from their beloved cheque books!
@davidof, Yes, I agree it must make it easier for them, so why I have to pay to make the system more efficient is a part of gallic culture that I fail to grasp - but I still wouldn't be without one.
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Same in Netherlands/Germany, where the respective residents all seem to holiday in caravans in each other country. Germans on the north sea coast, Dutch on the Bodensee.
A3 is nose to tail caravans both ways every Saturday during summer.
Delaying holiday by a day is wasting a day of holiday, and the Dutch are renowned for being a bit tight.
I expect same is true on A9 with all the Danes going N-S thru Germany in their campervans.
At least the Italians explore a bit in their campervans (always see them touring Scotland)
But at least there aren't any booths to clog things up, until you get to Brenner or Slovenia
Last edited by Ski the Net with snowHeads  on Mon 13-04-15 15:46; edited 1 time in total
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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Of all the proper horrible French queues we've been stuck in, about 1% have been at peage tolls and the rest have been at Eurotunnel for one reason or another. That's been Christmas or New Year every season, last three Feb half terms and first week Easter hols. Where possible we will avoid Saturdays depending on accommodation.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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why I have to pay to make the system more efficient is a part of gallic culture that I fail to grasp
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because it increases their profit by making you pay for their staffing cuts. Not hard to understand, really.  It's what all the pundits keep saying the French should be doing more often.
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Mind you, none of this is as stupid as the Dartford Crossing which we went through yesterday. I'm sure if you're a local then the concept of pre-paying / paying online afterwards is something you are well versed in. Having come through yesterday for the first time, we had our £2 ready, only to discover the barrier just pop up and away we went. Ah well, it must be free on Sunday's we thought. Until I idly googled it at home and discovered that I had until midnight tonight to pay the £2.50 charge, or face a £35 penalty charge!
At least we didn't queue though!
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You know it makes sense.
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I've waited longer on the Severn Bridge than I have at any French péage gate. And longer, the only time I did it, years ago, at the Dartford crossing than I have at all French péage gates put together.
And as for the queues at theme parks 
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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The first time we had serial queuing issues in France, I told my wife it was a one off as we'd never queued when I was a kid in the car.
Since then, every holiday we have taken had has some toll queues, and usually multiple ones on the same journey. We flew through each one on the way down to VT this year, but heading back north was a different story. And they only warn you about the "bouchons" when you've passed the last exit which would allow you to divert around it!
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Poster: A snowHead
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@larkim, luckily the Dartford crossing came up in conversation when we were away in Feb and the family who had driven down from the north west managed to pay just in time. I've only been over it once since it changed (January) but can't say it was well publicised on site.
There's a similar toll in Dublin which could catch you out, although the car hire companies are good at reminding people.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Dartford one does seem daft. All the rental car companies at London airports are mentioning it, although if I used LCY to get home, then I'd be using Blackwall Tunnel or Woolwich ferry. And if I were driving via Dover, I'd flip a coin to decide whether to attempt to pay or risk the international debt collection (seriously doubt German car reg. office would dish out details, so they'd probably have to sue P+O or SeaFrance for customer details)
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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And their online site even today hasn't managed to match up my payment to my trip!! The signage was all but nonexistant (I'm sure someone from Dart Charge could point to where they were, but we sailed through, happily sharing skiing tales and being full of final holiday fun. Had we been travelling southbound and straight across the channel I reckon I'd have arrived home to a cheery £35 notice, it was only because we'd got home and I was busy on the internet (I'd had withdrawal symptoms) that I even encountered it!)
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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@larkim, I have been doing the trip to the alpes by car upto 3 times a year for over 20 years and never encountered a queue at a toll booth. You must be getting all my share. Normally it is a choice of about a dozen empty lanes.
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Sorry I did forget - I went through the Dartford tunnel yesterday and had to queue 10 minutes for the privilege of having to pay later.
Thanks to everyone for the reminders above.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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The Darford Crossing is interesting. The tolls are outsourced to SANEF. The tags are exactly the same as SANEF use in France. But of course, our government here contracts it differently: Although they could have got SANEF to bill existing French tag customers, it's much too good a cash cow to do that - everyone who wants to auto-pay has to keep a £10 deposit with DART (a government operation) which is auto-topped-up when the balance hits £10: effectively, you have to give DART a £10, up-front interest-free loan. I suppose the Government has to find some way to fund all those people buying Affordable Housing with taxpayers money and leaving my kids with no way to get started on the housing ladder.
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@msej449,
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everyone who wants to auto-pay has to keep a £10 deposit with DART (a government operation) which is auto-topped-up when the balance hits £10
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That is not how I signed up. I did pay £10 up front, but it does not automatically top up - I can run it down before topping up another £10 - my balance now is down to £4.99, and will keep going down as I use it until I decide to top up.
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@msej449 I didn't sign up like that either. No compulsion to automatic top-up. I put £10 in the account. I've used it twice and no-one has asked me for more money yet.
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At peak times they can be a nightmare, but yeah the French are just used to it.
I must say its nice driving to skiing on a Saturday and seeing the bottlenecks going the other way with nothing but empty road ahead of us.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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ut then how many families with no school age children nonetheless drive to Cornwall on a Saturday in August?
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Because 1. they work during the week and 2. Cornwall is nicer during August than November.
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I must be a cheap skate as i only pre-paid £2.50 for the dart.
As for the OPs question... They deal with it much like we deal with traffic jams, either accept them or decide not to and travel at a less busy time, shimples.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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they work during the week and 2. Cornwall is nicer during August than November
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They deal with it much like we deal with traffic jams, either accept them or decide not to and travel at a less busy time, shimples.
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Exactly. These days it's very easy to anticipate where and when there will be traffic jams and everybody has the choice to avoid them or put up with them. Shimples, as the man says.
Personally, I much prefer Cornwall in June, early July or September. But I'm glad such a lot of people go in August instead. If I can avoid crowds and traffic jams, I do; if I had £1 for every hour I've spent sitting in traffic jams I wouldn't be very rich.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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| davidof wrote: |
| As for the French. They love sitting in traffic jams... .... It is a cultural thing. |
1- Some people here seem to be under the impression that those queues are constantly there. Bar a few exceptions, in a Dartford crossing like situation for example, bad queues only occur at peak times and the rest of the time it's very fluid. So why change an entire system on account of just a few bad WE a year?
2- We do not love sitting in traffic jams any more than the brits. There's often no choice. Book a flat/chalet rental and there's, more often than not during peak times at least, no choice but checking in on a Saturday. Check in later and you waste money.Often like those brits travelling to ski resorts at peak time and joining in in the general clogging up of autoroutes and bottlenecks...
3- The "doofer" situation is a sign of times where people can't bear to "waste" a few seconds. on my many drives across France's autoroutes I'd be curious, all other factors aside, to see how far ahead of me someone with said doofer would arrive. I usually pay with my credit card at the barrier. I'd say that 95% of the time there's no queue, I slow down, stop, put ticket in, put card in, pull card out, i'm on my way.. Someone with a doofer may save about a minute at best. On the whole trip you save about 10mins if you're lucky... awesome..  Not a great incentive for the occasional user since it doesn't save you money(it can if you're a frequent user, which most people aren't) and you pay an annual+momthly fee .
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@larkim, you must have had your timings wrong on Saturday as I drove back that day too and didn't encounter any peage queues at all and because my doofer was acting up ( need to send back think battery is finally dying) I didn't go to the non- stop lanes either. In fact had one of the smoothest journeys ever that day including bringing my booking forward on the Tunnel and then arriving and getting bumped further forward. Out of interest what time did you leave resort and arrive at Calais??
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You know it makes sense.
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I think we were at Chambery peage around 10:30am, Reims about 5:30 I reckon. As you say, possibly unlucky. But we seem to be getting persistently unlucky!!
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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@larkim, not not unlucky, you had your timings wrong then I'm afraid and would have been in the thick of the hordes leaving the mountains then. We made an early start and were at Calais for around 2.30pm so well ahead of the masses and no queues. Timings are key on peak weekends.
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Poster: A snowHead
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@msej449 (me) Re Dartford - I stand corrected, then. Thanks for the feedback: It's just that on reading the fine print in the Ts&Cs it seems to say that when I hit the £10 minimum balance, auto top-up kicks-in, but obviously this isn't the case in practice. Perhaps I should just turn off auto top-up and monitor the balance - it's not as if I use the Crossing that much, so I'll have a good idea of the balance.
As for having a French SANEF tag and whether it's worth it, I'd say yes, even 'though we travel off-peak as our children are grown up. Firstly, as mentioned, it means that the passenger doesn't have to wake up and pick up a ticket or sort out a card/coins. Second, it means you don't have the possibility of a lost ticket (this happened to my brother and of course, in theory, it "should be somewhere in the ******* car!" but it happened and was expensive). Third, I'd say that the 30Kph lane makes a cumulative difference on a long journey, even in quiet traffic. And Fourthly, there have been enough occasions when we've just been at the wrong place at the wrong time and we've saved 15-20 minutes of queuing. I think that most people who have one will say it's worth it.
Last edited by Poster: A snowHead on Thu 16-04-15 9:01; edited 3 times in total
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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would have been in the thick of the hordes leaving the mountains then
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It bears repeating (and it's said over and over here on Snowheads) that on busy Saturdays you need to be out of the resort really early or leave it till around 5 pm (the latter being ideal for spending a quiet transfer day skiing, then getting half way to Calais before stopping for the night. Or stopping earlier somewhere nice - like Beaune, for example, for a good dinner too.
Another alternative is to leave Friday night. But yes, if you have a normal sort of time breakfast on Saturday, pack up and go, you will be in the thick of it.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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@msej449, my hubby lost the péage tag on a summer holiday following a trip to the Marché aux Vins in Beaune for some wine tasting. I was sober and driving, he was navigating and p*ssed. We ended up on the wrong autoroute, and when we finally found the right one and got to Reims, he had lost the ticket. We had to pay all the way from Marseille
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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@pam w, I think we were heading to Auxerre or something.
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@Hels Bells Yes. My brother was driving down to Spain and this was on one of the longest sections, so the cost was considerable. I gather it made for a somewhat chilly remainder of the journey. He still can't understand how they came to lose the ticket ("I always put it in the glovebox ..!") but it happened. They didn't realise it was lost until they were in line at the toll booth and couldn't easily pull over to search. It makes for a lot of stress if you're already in a queue with people behind you. He reckons it must have dropped out at one of the stops they made.
One of the great things about my Audi A3 was that it had a special spring-loaded, credit-card sized Ticket Tray in the centre console. This made things much easier. Even so we had a couple of instances of opening the Tray on the approach to a péage and finding it was empty ... cue panic and recrimination until I realised I'd put it somewhere else ....
Last edited by Then you can post your own questions or snow reports... on Thu 16-04-15 10:27; edited 1 time in total
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I have seen it but never done it personally but dropping the card just before inserting it in the slot causes the most difficulty. You have driven as close as possible to the slot to reach it so of course you cannot open the door to retreive it. You then have two options: wait for assistance from the staff or climb out the other door, walk around and grovel in full view of the people trapped behind you.
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Third, I'd say that the 30Kph lane makes a cumulative difference on a long journey, even in quiet traffic.
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Stopping for a pee will wipe out this difference so make sure you have at least one pee bottle in the car.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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@johnE I'm not saying that 15 minutes saved via the 30Kph lane on a 5 hour journey is the sole reason for getting a SANEF Tag. Just that it's one of the side-benefits. For me, the extra convenience and occassional queue avoidance is worth the tag's fee, given that I drive down to the Alps a number of times each year.
Of course, the other benefit is if you ever drive on your own. In which case it's certainly a major boon once you are out of the UK tool booths around Calais.
Or, heaven forbid, if your passenger is not up to it: a colleague of mine came back from the Alps afer having been taken ill and going into hospital on his ski holiday. Without theit tag, his wife would have had to get out at every péage as he really would not have been up to faffing-around with tickets.
Last edited by You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net. on Thu 16-04-15 10:36; edited 1 time in total
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One of the best reasons for having a tag is that you don't really take on board how much you're paying!
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FAQ
