My wife received a contravention for the car she owns (on Carte Griose says she is “le proprietaire du vehicle”) and duly paid the 45 euros fine straight away on amendes.gouv.fr. Notice came in July 2017 paid in 1 week. Now we have receive another Avis de Contravention says “Pour Non Desognation de Conducteur”. There wasn’t any kind of formulaire on the ticket we received only one if you weren’t the driver of your car.
Now the demand is 675 Euros - 450 Euros if pay quickly or if you don’t pay and don’t contest a whopping 1,875 euros.
Having paid quickly and now receiving this clearly she and I are very concerned and unhappy.
Any advise what to do. We are thinking of writing a CR letter to Rennes explaining how can this be so.
Seems to be all about the Représentant Legal. But isn’t that a corporation or comapny car type thing?
[Sorry hit the enter key by mistake/without finishing this post off]. If anyone has faced a similar issue or knows what we can do. Could you please be as kind to reply perhaps with your comments or suggestions. Many thanks in advance.
Yes she runs our Gite. Spot on with your helpful link to this article. . In reading this we will need to photocopy our Carte Grise which clearly has her as the owner of the vehicle then.
Loads of people are getting caught out on this one since the law changed re company vehicles
we take payment/pay them “dématérialisé” in our tabac and there’s nothing in place (dématérialisé) to comply with the change/declare who was driving!!! but we do warn people
Hi Andrew, thanks for your reply. However, I’m not sure I understand your
dématéralisé bit.
My wife’s carte grise clearly says she is the owner but perhaps when we
bought the car some years ago there was a deal because she had a siret for
her one man band gite.
What do you think is the best way forward to respond to the 450 euros
demand please?
Here’s a nurse who had the same experience, and when she asked she was told that technically she had broken the law. It says at the bottom is “Elle a envoyé une requête en exonération où elle explique sa bonne foi. Elle est en attente d’une réponse.” I guess that’s all you can do. It does seem that the way this new law is being enforced is a complete shambles and they must be getting loads of letters so hopefully they’ll accept that it’s not fair to fine people who are in good faith.
Unfortunately it seems that you shouldn’t have paid the first fie
dématérialisé - paid electronically (via our till direct to the payment centre in Rennes) we advise people to fill in the blue page giving the details of the driver and send it off to Rennes or to call into the perception/trésor public to give the details. As with most things in France they haven’t thought through the practicalities of how to actually get it done!
I imagine that’s probably quite a revealing part of your business Andrew, dealing with people who come in to pay fines! The only time I ever paid a fine at a tabac I had to steel myself to do, I felt really embarrassed in case they looked at me pityingly or treated me like a criminal, but I was relieved and impressed at how it was dealt with just like any other business transaction.
You do hear some stories! The last time I got caught I was day-dreaming on my way back from picking up the next batch of timbres fiscaux and timbres amendes - talk about irony! We try and be discrete with people who are obviously a bit embarassed, but others tell everyone in the shop what happened!
Thanks Andrew. We have completed the blue form and wrote a note stating we didn’t understand and the car was only registered in the owners name and this is how we have completed this before. Fingers crossed.
It’s a month on since my last post on this. However, we received a letter in reply to our blue form/covering note that we sent to them. So I thought people might like to know what they are saying so far at least to us.
Does anyone else have any idea what’s happening and what will be the next likely outcome?
It reads the following…
Suite au courrier que vous fait parvenir, vous informe la transmission du dossier vous concernant à l’officier du Public Tribunal de Police lieu de ci-après M. L’Officier du Ministère Public Tribunal de Police de Périgueux 17 rue du IV septembre BP 20160 24007 PERIGUEUX CEDEX
Il appartiendra à ce dernier d’apprécier la suite à donner à cette affaire et de vous en faire part. En cas de retrait de points sur votre permis de conduire, une demande de restitution a été faite au service du Fichier National des Permis de Conduire.
So the officer of the Public Court of Police has referred our case to as the Public Prosecutor.
Police Court of Périgueux
17 rue du IV september BP 20160 24007
PERIGUEUX CEDEX
It will be up to him to assess what happens to this case and to share it with you.
If points are withdrawn from your driving license, a refund request has been made service of the National License File.
update - I got caught day-dreaming again, almost arrived at my parents-in-law’s for a big family get together and forgot the radar only a coupl of km from where we used to live, remembered it as I past it and too late… got the letter and it now says at the top of the orange sheet (the one you use to pay) that if you are driving a company car and the company is mentioned, not the person/driver, not to pay the pv but to go to the internet site mentioned and give the details of the driver. I have done this and I too am now waiting to hear - I should get the same fine but in my name then pay it as per normal.
In your case, you’ve been given a standard letter which doesn’t really apply - they’ll restitue points to someone who wrongly had them taken away - not your case as you can’t take them away from a représentant légal ! I’d phone or pop in and see them in Périgueux if I were you
