French Parking Fines

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

The way they do points and fines differs. In Germany points are stored centrally on a computer, and that's even for non-German licences. So you *can* get points in Germany with a UK licence, but drive anywhere else and your licence is essentially clean and not endorsed. Think a short term ban even allows you to choose when to hand over your licence, within a 6 month period... so you just arrange that to be when you're on vacation or out of the country. I assume that UK system doesn't cater for the opposite?

My experience of Netherlands is that speeding and RLJ is merely revenue raising, and an occupational hazard of driving. Once you got 1 ticket the rest come thru with an acceptgiro form pre-filled... you just sign, date, and send it to your bank and are (yet) another €20 lighter. Oh and lots of reciprocal agreements, and local banks in each country. Don't overstay your parking ticket at 8.04am in the carpark outside the parking police... they to a recce to identify which cars will need a ticket when the clock strikes 8, then sprint round slapping a €60 ticket plus the unpaid parking on all the cars before the owners can get there.

Dunno about France, other than rumours from some French colleagues about nicking drivers that are only just speeding, or possibly technically not speeding at all, where they are using SatNav indicated speed rather than speedo needle indicated speed.

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Fred, if i were you i wouldn't pay it. It's not likely to get much worse is it? Like pam i'd guess there must be a maximum fine and you must be close to it now.

if you do feel obliged to pay it, i'd get a friend to write a letter explaining why you're late and send the original smaller fine - i've heard of that working in the past.

After all it is free

I just can't work out why you would want to use SatNav indicated speed rather than your car's speedo Puzzled

Ok I accept that all speedos have a margin of error and that error will always be over-reading (i.e. saying 80mph when it is 76) but GPS is hardly more accurate, particularly in the Alps where mountains and tunnels will get in the way.

Plus I really can't see that 4mph is going to make a huge difference in my travel time

davidof, colleague was just telling me yesterday about these 2 new clever systems where they recognise number plates and also do average speed checks. Don't think he believed me when I told him that UK has had both of those in operation for years.

Don't know about Germany, but they do do random stops, and also roadblocks to stop all cars to check ID, paperwork etc. The Toll Collect gantries have an impressive looking amount of gadgetry on them, which I'm sure could technically do much more than handle the HGV tolls.

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Because the accuracy specification for the speedo in all cars is +10%/-0%, therefore the indicated speed is generally lower than actual.

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[spyder_pig, I realise that, as I stated, but even if you drove all the way from Calais to Les Arcs at an average of 130kph (if my calculations are correct) that would be 7h 24m - driving on a speedo with a 10% error would see it take 8h18m

Is an extra 45m to avoid a fine from a incorrectly calibrated camera really that bad?

When you take stops, tolls, and everything else into account you still will bearly see a difference.

Boris, 45mins = 3 beers.

hence totally worth it.

You know it makes sense.

I thought that 130 on French motorways meant 130 mph for the British, only the locals have to work in kph. Toofy Grin

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

monkey, so you wait to the resort before you start drinking - weird. I always crack the first can after Albertville, a beer or two helps me relax for the tricky bendy bits to come

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Boris, A few Jagerbombs does it for me, added benefit of Red Bull to keep me awake after 12 hours driving. Toofy Grin

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bar shaker,

That's twice. Just because you think you know what's reasonable and what isn't doesn't mean you do.

I had a slightly agonised and panicky call from him at 09h00 (!) on a sunny Saturday morning asking for help as DI Plodette and DS Plod from Chelsea nick had just been round for a friendly chat where they explained that they were obliged to enfore the fine and the options were to pay up or they would be back after whatever the grace period was to escort him to a channel ferry where he'd be placed in the tender care of the Bernese police.

My wife and I translated the letters from Bern Police to Chelsea Police, Bern Police to him, Bern Court to him and subsequent correspondence (helpfully in French and German).

I spoke to DI Plodette (who was charming) to see whether there was anything we could do help semi-locally (i.e. at least in same country as opposed to same canton).

nbt, should have phrased it better, over here it's just viewed as a optional tax.

Another wee tale, a friend a couple of months ago got nicked by a roadside camera patrol (oddly enough, again near Bern) for doing 85kph in a temporary 50kph autoroute roadworks. Unimpressed to be escorted to cash machine to get out CHF 550.- "provisional" fine as he claims he was just keeping up with the rest of the reasonably heavy traffic.

Most unimpressed to get letter from Bern courts requesting an additional CHF 1,350.- two weeks later.

Switzerland holds the world record for a single speeding fine at ~£180,000 about a year ago... http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8446545.stm

Ah, no, maybe I'm making that up and creating my very own BBC website?

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

under a new name, I am sure that what you say is happening is actually happening, but how are Plod and Plodette suggesting payment be made? I will freely admit to being a cynical git, but there is a tiny whiff of scam about this to me (just from the above post, I haven't read any previous posts)

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Boris,

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DON'T SPEED IN SWITZERLAND 90k in 70k zone missed the speed limit sign near chur . 2 hours in police station
being integrated by plod. 1550 francs later thank god for amex and a 3 month ban from driving in switzwrland.
We don't drive to italy through Switzerland any more, we go the long way round now.

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peter42, or, don't speed?

Boris, ...

After all it is free

under a new name, Didn't think we were speeding. Chap behind us 3000 francs fine for the same speed.
He had a better paid job hence the 2 hour integration to find out how much you salary was. Having spoke to
our friends in italy this seamed a regular spot for a nick as the speed limit sign was easy to miss.

under a new name, you know what I don't give a toss

Good it's all above board, but FROM THE INFORMATION YOU HAD POSTED TO DATE my cynical side was a little suspicious

You think all scams are obvious - good you keep thinking that

I was offering an opinion - weird really on an open internet forum.

rolling eyes

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Boris, you clearly hadn't actually read what I'd posted.

Anyway, wottever.

I just wonder how people from the Ivory Coast ever book self catering apartments.

peter42, oops. Yeah, means tested fines, often. Not great. I think the German speaking cantons are worse for that, whereas, e.g. Vaud is worse for density of cameras, at least on the Geneva-Lausanne link.

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I obviously got off lightly. 109 kph in a 100 kph zone near Lausanne. 60 CHF fine, plus £20 deducted from my credit card for the administrative costs of the car hire company in providing my name and address to the Vaud police. I set my cruise control to read in kph and drive at the speed limit these days. The trick is keeping an eye out for the irritating micro-management speed limit variations on bends and slip roads. For instance, there is a camera on the bend where you join the A9 from the A1 going past Lausanne. The limit on that bend is 80 kph. I don't think we have so much variability in motorway speed limits in the UK.

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under a new name, Look, I believe you. No, really. Even the bit about a DS turning up in a marked car.

Plenty wouldn't but I do.

I'm just off to write to my MP about our under worked coppers logging time collecting Swiss speeding fines. Good job there are no unsolved crimes, or even 65,000 absconded deportation cases to stop them going round your mate's.

Or even the use of marked cars when detectives have their unmarked fleet.

bar shaker, perhaps worse, there was a uniform driving them around.

You know it makes sense.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

What's worse (or maybe better) is any Swiss person can denounce you for offences. That is how it worked for my parking fine where I was denounced to the police by the company that manages our company's offices. The police then contacted the French licensing authority to find out my address. The fine is almost unlimited if you don't pay due to the costs.

I don't think the French would bother though. It is a Swiss thang.

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Boris, Not as amazed as my mate was when the two rozzers woke him out of a somewhat hungover slumber, way too early on a Saturday morning. In fairness to them, they were suitably sheepish, but orders is orders.

davidof, Unless you specifically request it to be blocked, in writing; you can send a text message with a Swiss car reg to a certain number and it returns text with registered keeper's name and address.

We were warned very strongly that denouncing people who drive in bus lanes when not a bus was incredibly common. No one does it.

Our builder was denounced for working on a public holiday.

Our gardener for using power tools on a Saturday without the appropriate permit (He was fined CHF 3,600.- whereas if he'd dropped into the Mairie the morning before they'd have given him the free permit on the spot. Ouch).

Net result? The country generally functions very well and has a very low "common" crime rate & almost no litter. The downside as a foreigner is that you have to get used to obeying all the "little" rules that in many places get ignored.

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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

When in Zurich we were told not to cross the road against the Red Man, needless to say we did until one day one of the ex pats was with and said please don't because the locals will follow you like sheep and get run over.
Sure enough next time we tried there were a couple of locals falliing us across.
We waited like good Swiss after that

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A bit off topic, but .... speaking of parking enforcement bar stewards .... there was a good game on in Rotherham when it snowed. Friends who work in the council office watched as the wardens amused themselves by going around the handful of cars who'd made it into the carpark opposite, scraping away the snow to find the bay markings and slapping tickets on all those who weren't fully within marked bays.

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Netherlands can be just as bad. Our (friendly) next door neighbour (not the grumpy one) grassed us up to the dustbin police cos we put the bags out the night before, and not after 7am rolling eyes

The bin bag police take such bags away (and random other ones), then do forensics on them to ID the culprits... then send a fine! My flatmate put the bags out... and he put bank statements in there rolling eyes

and the fine was addressed to him.

Crossing a pedestrian crossing on Red also naughty, even if no cars. Other flatmate got the ticking off from Police car waiting at the red light on the other half of the crossing - Was over the PA, so everyone was alerted Wink

So much for being a liberal country.

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Boredsurfing, roflol

Except it's really not funny.

Really.

andy, I thought only the Swiss did that...

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The Brits to the early bin-bag thing too, our whole street got letters from the "street scene co-ordinator" rolling eyes

after a few households broke the rule about not putting them out before 7PM the night before collection. No letters after 2 weeks of no collections across xmas & NY though, even though there were huge piles of bags by the end.

After all it is free

Interesting one. Brother-in-law has received a speeding fine notice from the Swiss police this week. He wasn't even in Switzerland at the time, although he had been a month earlier. The offence took place in 2009, and I assume car rental people have made a mistake with who had the car on that date. He was only in Switzerland from the French border to Geneva and return, on the 21st July and 4th August.

For the record: while I was living in Germany, I received a demand to pay a fine for a parking offence in Kitzbühel. I didn't bother first time and only when I received a (more expensive) reminder did I check with the ADAC (= German AA). They explained that there is already a mutual agreement on collecting such fines between Austria and Germany, quite independent of any European legislation which may be introduced Sad

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Hells Bells, best he get letter writing to both the car hire firm and the police. I presume he has witnesses does he still have paper trail?

espri, France and Switzerland now have an agreement... Shocked

Help!!

French Parking Fines

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