Speed Camera Blackspots in France (Guest Blog)

@Louis. Money from the tolls go to the private companies that build/operate the motorways not the state.

@Chris. Personally I find a radar far more effective at slowing me down than a flashing sign because there are too many of those illuminated when there is no apparent risk/danger and that lead to a "Boy crying Wolf" scenario. Losing 4 points for missing a Stop sign has made me far more attentive.

Yes Chris, I think mine are gone for good though I can't see the police enforcing this. They'd have to understand how to check every manufactures device to see if the locations were present and then you could say that feature was turned off. They'd spend hours fiddling with satnavs on the side of the road.

All good points Chris, re: the actions of the driver post 'flash'. It's amazing that they still need to charge such high road tolls given that the road system is already producing this sort of income. Lost my positions on my Garmin some time ago when the law first changed. I think you can manually insert them once you drive past though. What about the radar detectors that are still on sale in places like Feu Vert? Illegal?

Didn't know that, John - mine is TomTom home, where the options are there. With map updates, it can take six hours....

I don't think you can put them back any more, unless there's a third party hack out there, which wouldn't surprise me.

Steve, I don't dispute that at all, I merely suggested that there were more effective methods, like flashing "Queue Ahead" signs, which I've seen elsewhere, which work because they only flash when the danger is current, and which don't cause drivers to panic about whether or not they've bee caught by a camera, when their attention focussed on a possible situation ahead is of more relevance (and more importance).

There are actually two applications for updating Tomtoms Chris. One is Tomtom HOME which is PC based and the other is web based. I've used Tomtom HOME on earlier Tomtoms and I remember one could select which countries speed cameras to load. My 1005 unfortunately has to use the web based one which seems to give much less control over what you have on your device. The removal masqueraded as an update, which I suppose it was in a way. I couldn't find any way to put them back.

@Chris K. Perhaps if you knew that bit of motorway you would understand. The notices and the camera slow people down so that when they get round the bend and find a queue, they are going at a speed they can stop from, if they were still at 130, they wouldn't. Only solution to that problem would to have built the motorway in a different place

Steve Yates - how can a camera stop people from running into a queue of traffic? There are far more expedient methods...

A camera prevents nothing.

TomTom doesn't automatically remove the French speed cameras - in the list of updates, there is a "Remove French Cameras" checkbox option - you don't have to check it, but if you have, then you've lost them.

I updated my Tomtom satnav a couple of days ago and the French speed camera locations were removed from the device during the process. The Tomtom website stated this was due to the recent law. Tomtom customer support is poor at the best of times but I would have preferred the option to remove or keep. Now I'm flying blind :-(

@Chris H. The one I referred to on the A6 just before the tunnel in Lyon was put there to stop people running into the queue of traffic that is hidden from view by a bend. It's not there for raising funds.

They are nothing but a revenue earning con, have no bearing (or beneficial effect) on safety, which is what they are purportedly there for, and if anything have a bad effect on safe driving. I think we all know that.

I note that the French also consider it illegal to possess a satnav device which includes fixed speed camera locations. You would think, wouldn't you, that knowledge of the position of a camera would serve to make drivers consciously slow down, thus achieving the alleged purpose that the camera is apparently there for. Passing a camera at a speed which triggers it doesn't achieve anything but revenue, panic on the realisation that you triggered it, and a consequent loss of attention and focus on what you are doing, combined (often), with an unnecessary and sudden application of the brakes, thus a far more unsafe situation than if the camera hadn't been there in the first place.

Perhaps Greece should spend some of the bailout cash installing some.

@Tracy

The A41 camera is as you come into Annemasse from Chamonix, you come down the hill, with a busy shopping centre on the right hand side

Isn't that the A40 rather than the A41? Or was it previously the A41 before the tunnel was built from Annecy to St Julien? Still confused.

Must admit i've been caught twice. Most annoying was doing 99 in a 90 zone, i was overtaking the only other car on the road that was doing about 50, 12.30 on a Sunday evening on my way home from the airport. Obviously they don't have the 10% +2 rule here!

@Frank. A trick I have notice recently is to position a mobile radar just after a fixed one so as to catch all those that speed up once they think they are safe.

Don't mind being controlled for speeding in normal situations, I do mind being victim to trickery as when cameras are installed on a road where speed limits constantly changes, for instance, 90 then 70 then back to 90 and cameras flashed at the least "missing to see" of the latest change. Ever tried contesting Big Brother's judgement ? Bring a sack lunch and plenty of cash. Just in case other victims in the same interchange, the Antibes exit on the A8 toward Sophia Antipolis.

@ Iain The A41 camera is as you come into Annemasse from Chamonix, you come down the hill, with a busy shopping centre on the right hand side, the motorway veers sharply to the left then does a massive bend to the left. I drive a coach and to be honest to do the bend safely it is necessary to slow to 50km but in a car it's quite possible at about 80km. It is a busy area and the camera is situated just before the shopping centre but you can't see how bad the bend is from there. I can also confirm there are also a lot of accidents so it is actually well placed.

I thought my favourite on the A6 just N of the Fourviere tunnel would be higher, not even in the top 50 these days ;-)

Where is it exactly?