France starts issuing speeding fines to the UK

It always amuses me that people wouldn’t go out and take a pint of milk without paying for it or commit a public order offence, yet they are unhappy about being punished for speeding

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No bitterness or anger from me Stella!! Honestly.

I was over the limit and the camera flashed me - so be it - and I paid the fine.

My point was related to the indiscriminate nature of the camera. My father was a Traffic Police Officer in the Met in the 60’s and 70’s and he and his colleagues took a pragmatic view of speeding. If it was the middle of the night and the speed was not excessively over the limit - bearing in mind the location - then a bollocking of the driver and a long delay in releasing them usually sufficed. If the speeding was carried out, say, along a road with a school, then he would most likely throw the book at the offender for even a small infraction.

I have no problem with the zero tolerance attitude - other than it causes the driver to pay too much attention to the speedo in the car and not enough on the road ahead. Bear in mind, I was caught at 7kmh over the 70kmh limit, so my speedo was probably reading 80kmh or so. In the car I was in, the spacing between each 10MPH interval is quite small - you can imagine how much smaller the spacing is between the 10kph intervals and how much smaller the numerals are.

As I said though - I did the crime, and I paid the fine.

I will know where that camera is in future!!! :wink:

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As you will note… I was not having a go at you. :hugs:

Actually… you are not alone in having “difficulty” with small speedos.

In one friend’s car… the speed is shown in huge numbers … impossible to miss. on the windscreen I think… (no complications) .

In my Sunbeam, I have a gadget which works via GPS as the Speedo does not work… I might put that gadget in my modern car… it does make it easy to know what speed I am doing…without constantly looking down…

There is another post on this forum & it’s an eye opener for me as I didn’t realize that I correspond with so many criminals.:thinking:
Flashed by speed cam…can I find out for sure!

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Should be in prison.

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I received two - from around the Rouen area - one for doing 95 in a 90 zone and one for 9km over. I am usually very careful to keep within speed limits, and get French cars speeding past me all the time. There are also not always signs when the speed limit changes to a lower figure. The fines came in the same post - dated six months previously. This was the week I finally moved to France. Luckily my ferry crossing was delayed due to the weather, so I happened to see the post that day. Had I not seen them, the letters would have been collected by my son and sent on to me in France (redirection by Royal Mail to a EU country for a year is nearly £300) and I wouldn’t have received them for weeks, thus increasing the fine for non-payment. But it took them six months to send them anyway.
I wonder why they are cracking down on UK cars at this particular time…not saying UK drivers shouldn’t be penalised for breaking speed limits, but what a coincidence that the UK has caused the French authorities a lot of extra work in the present climate - perhaps they see this as a way of recouping some of the money they’ve had to pour into processing Carte de Sejour applications and issuing new post-Brexit laws for UK immigrants.

Wow - pretty negative attitude towards France when you’re just starting your new life here. I do hope things ‘improve’ for you…

For info: many of the delays in processing fines have been as a result of the number of cameras destroyed during the Gilet Jaunes protests which started back in November 2018. (not Brexit related!)

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Hi Jacky

Was it last year… the year before … can’t remember as time flies (when you are having fun)…

There was quite a spread in the Press/TV etc, warning that foreign drivers would, in the future, no longer be able to “offend” in France and get off scot free. Some new international tracking system was supposed to be coming on-line… can’t recall all the info…

I wonder if the fines that are zipping onto the mat… have something to do with that…

I’m sure the Warning was mentioned on the forum, at the time… either in its own thread or within another… :thinking:

The UK signed up to a European agreement to share vehicle ownership information but were given a two year exemption which lapsed a while back. The scale of this is staggering as an estimated 500,000 motoring offences are committed by UK registered vehicles in France every year.

It does beg the question of where any fines go for the UK reg’d vehicles that we see driven by Brits who live here full-time.

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I wonder if such folk will be in for a nasty surprise… when/if they ever go to change their car onto French Regn… :thinking::upside_down_face:

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It is difficult to tell exactly if you are 5k over or not.
Roadside warning equipment as to your speed vary hugely and the GPS always shows 3kph less than the speedometer.
So to be safe from speeding tickets you are actually travelling at less than the posted speed.

Seems reasonable to me… the posted speed is the limit… so best to keep just below (by whatever means) … and relax… :upside_down_face:

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I don’t recall seeing that…maybe I was busy at the time… I never took it for granted that UK drivers wouldn’t be chased, though people said the French didn’t bother chasing them up, but that didn’t mean I purposely went over the limit. But it was noticeable that many French drivers speeded past me on the motorways and I thought, they don’t seem to be bothered about limits and they must use those roads more often than I do if they live here, which I didn’t at the time.

Hi Jacky… I’m sure you didn’t take it for granted… and, yes, it is infuriating to see folk zooming past… obviously way over the top… I often mutter to myself… “there goes another accident waiting to happen”… and hope that, if it does, it is not on my bit of road… :upside_down_face:

These fines related to before the GJs became active. If the cameras were destroyed how are they able to function and photograph drivers?
And I was just recounting my experience of getting fined, It isn’t a “negative attitude”, it’s fact.

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Since you don’t know the drivers of French cars that passed you-you don’t know if they also got speeding fines . So don’t know how you can think they are “cracking down on UK cars” at all.

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Precisely, some do talk nonsense.

I don’t really understand the attitude to speed limits. The limit is a maximum not a minimum so just drive beneath the limit and all will be well. In my 11 1/2 years in France I didn’t get a speeding fine once (or in 21 years of driving in the UK before that).

Also, unless you are caught by a police officer with a speed gun who’s hiding behind a bush, I find it hard to understand how people can be caught by fixed cameras. There is always a warning that they are there and the speed limit sign is usually just before the camera so there can be no doubt of the limit. Do people think they will get away with it or are they just not concentrating on their driving?

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I pass countless flashing speed monitoring signs every week and always check to see that the speed shown matches mine and it rarely does so I’m left wondering whether the van’s speedometer is at fault or the sign.

I read somewhere or another… that the flashing-speed thingies are to make folk “aware” of speed… as so many zip through (wherever) at excessive speed, without a thought… and/or possibly without meaning to do so…

As you say, you glanced at your speedo… and so do I… :upside_down_face:

Traffic lights near us will change to Red if a speedster is detected. This is a road which has priority… so it will normally stay Green until someone wants to join from the side road…

Drives me nuts if I am approaching carefully… green, green… then a plonker zooms up behind me and the light changes to Red… and we have to sit and wait… then, once we are all “calmed down” … the light goes Green…