Windscreen Insurance Certificate To Be Dropped?

It’s unlikely that “scanning number plates” will produce an immediate response. A request to DVLA or MID by phone or email would probably be the route taken. A driver needs to produce prooof of insurance if stopped and a follow up for failing to do so would be after the vehicle is seized imo.

Would be very helpful if you could quote the source. Merci :+1:

@letsmile
It was in The Connexion.
If you copy and paste the text in a search, you should end up on the relevant page.
It mentions the Green Card Free Circulation Area (GCFCA), which allows for digitised versions of the insurance sticker and says the legal framework has been in place since 2021.

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I don’t think the green windscreen thingy has or ever had any relevance outside France (nor in France now :face_with_hand_over_mouth:), it’s the green card that counts. As for other police forces having access to the French national car insurance database, I doubt it. It’d be a big, big project. Probably the next step should be a single EU wide DB. As to whether the UK then gets access… I suppose if they ask really nicely, maybe :face_with_hand_over_mouth: Meanwhile the green card is your only man, just like it was fifty years ago. That’s progress for you.

The aspect of removing the green “sticker” that pleases me most is that I won’t have to worry about where to put it on the windscreen anymore, thus freeing up more real estate for my Crit’Air one.

I wonder why there isn’t a nationwide emissions DB too instead :thinking:

Message from my Car Insurer…

  • Fin de la Carte Verte (pour les véhicules immatriculés en France) : Vous n’aurez plus à coller votre carte verte sur votre pare-brise à compter du 1ᵉʳ avril 2024.

  • Le rôle renforcé du Fichier des Véhicules Assurés : les forces de l’ordre contrôleront le respect de l’obligation d’assurance avec le fichier des véhicules assurés (FVA).

  • Arrivée du “Mémo Véhicule Assuré” : Afin de faciliter votre quotidien, ce document regroupera toutes les informations nécessaires en cas de constat à l’amiable. Bien qu’il ne soit pas obligatoire, il est fortement conseillé de le conserver dans votre véhicule.

  • Une Attestation d’Assurance Automobile nécessaire dans certains cas : Elle vous sera indispensable uniquement si votre véhicule n’est pas immatriculé* ou si vous voyagez dans les pays suivants : Albanie, Azerbaïdjan, Maroc, Moldavie, République de Macédoine du Nord, Tunisie, Turquie, Ukraine.

I shall keep the Memo with the Carte Grise… both docs will be in the car when it is out on the roads… along with my Permis de Conduire (pink cardboard)

Do you need any advice on where to place it? :wink:

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Personally I’d keep a green card in the car when abroad. I suppose it comes down to whether the GCFCA is the… Green Card Free, Circulation Area or the Green Card, Free Circulation Area :joy:

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Maybe we should start a separate thread for that?

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Don’t tempt him :astonished: :rofl:

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Careful now…

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Apparently, there is a data base for all the countries that are signatories to the Green Card Free Circulation Area (GCFCA) which includes the UK and others outside the EU. When is becomes active is unknown. My post was in reply to " can UK plod access my French insurance". The Green Card is that access but no longer required to be carried. My certificates of insurance do indicate which countries are covered and have done so for as far back as I can remember. Posts by my local RPU (traffic plod) indicates that seizure of foreign registered vehicles with suspect insurance is the usual response prior to proof being produced later.

Nice as that would be I find that very hard to believe. Who hosts it, who inputs to it, how and by what methods is data retrieved and used by the signatories’ enforcement agencies? What are the security implications? There is no way I can believe that a cop in Palermo or Paddington can tap into a GFCCA DB that tells them that a car or a driver from another state is insured or not.

I’ve a pal with quite a few cars, he has a “garage” policy, so none of his cars are “insured”. So it would need to be not just a DB of car registrations, it’d have to include personal insurance policies. Then should the DB store registrations, which can be easily moved from vehicle to vehicle, or VIN codes? How many countries are in the GFCCA, how many insurance companies (who provide the data), how many police forces (who need to retrieve that data), how many interfaces needed? My head boggles. We’ll need a lot of AI and quantum computing to solve this one :slightly_smiling_face: Thank goodness for the new Nvidia chips.

They’re even coming up with some credit card sized bandaid here because the update from insurer to the national DB could take 72 hours and you could be zapped in the interim. I have always thought the green sticker thingy was a load of Bol*cks. In Ireland they actually ask for the sticker to be returned if you cancel your insurance. Obviously a rule introduced by someone who has never heard of a photocopier. Equally, anybody could forge one and I’m sure many do. I think the national DB is probably only useful in conjuncton with ANPR.

What was wrong with the old green card anyway? Though if remember correctly UK insurance companies used to charge for one and it was for a limited period.

Meanwhile, I’ll keep a copy of my green card in the glovebox :slightly_smiling_face:

The bandaid you mention is just a Cover Note John. Same as a UK insurer would issue I would guess. Or… could France make that more complicated ?

Yes Karen but SFA use abroad I’d guess. I want a green card that I can keep in my glovebox(s) and pop into Italy, Spain or wherever and not worry about databases, digital whatsits, networks or smart phones or nuffing. After a career “computerising” stuff I know what should be just left alone :roll_eyes:

You will have your new “Memo”… from your Insurer this year… which gives all the details of your Insurance cover… and they suggest you do carry this (athough it is not mandatory).
Not much different from the document we’ve always had… and not needed anything more than this for travel throughout Europe etc… but the Attestation (whatever )can be obtained for those rare countries and situations as listed in post 45 just scroll up above a little…

I’ve had the Green Card incorporated into the certicate since the early 60s and it’s many years ago since I paid for a Green Card per se although some insurers charge extra for continental cover option.

It seems UK insurers restrict foreign cover to a maximum of 180 days total per year, certainly all mine have, but I’ve never found why this is so… However, Saga seems to be the only insurer that offers 365 cover on two of its policies but 90 days on the base policy.

Re police insurance checks on vehicles my view is that any doubt about a policy will result in vehicle seizure pending enquiries. Trader policies in the UK often fall into this category.

A GCFCA data base would probably consist of access to each country’s centralised bureau such as the MIB in the UK and it’s probably already in use in the EU.

And I wonder what will that mean to Officer Luigi in Palermo or Officer Ludwig in Baden Baden or Officer “allo allo” in Stepney Stella? The green card is the green card and I, for one, am not putting my faith in some Mickey Mouse credit card sized document from Axa that nobody outside France recognises. We travel often in France, Italy, Spain and the UK (less so now) and Ireland. A France specific document is useless to us.

I do understand your concerns… I too would not want something the size of a credit card… but I’ve not seen the “size” of the official “Memo” mentioned anywhere…

In my innocence, I’m assuming the Memo will be the normal A4 or at worst A5… :crossed_fingers:

It was mentioned somewhere that would be credit card sized Stella, I suppose for “convenience”. I’m more concerned that police in other countries won’t have a clue what it is :roll_eyes: They know and understand green cards.

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good grief… it’s suggested that the Memo is in the car… in case of an accident when each driver completes his/her sections in the “amiable agreement of what happened”
If it’s CC size I won’t be able to read mine without a magnifying glass… . ah well… there’s bound to be a suitable alternative as I can’t be the only person who feels like this… :wink:

no point in my panicking though… the sun’s shining… hurrah

EDIT: delving further into my Insurer’s website… it talks about this Memo (with all the necessary info on it) being sent by Email… so it can be printed out or kept on ones computer/whatever…

and is asking us to ensure all contact details, plus vehicle info is up to date… so they send the correct Memo etc etc etc