89Kph over the limit in France....

[gtidriver]

Just remembered, the last toll on the way back from paris,the lady at the toll booth gets the raging hump, has a hissy fit, probably swears a lot and throws her arms in the air, when i reversed the car through the toll plaza, it was cold wet and dark plus my 5yr old was asleep so unable to insert my ticket and credit card to pay, the lazy little bugger I don't recommend this, it was dead though i wouldn't have done it if it was busy.

[itcaptainslow]

After being caught at Le Mans last year and having the unpleasant experience of being bundled into the back of a French rozzer car, relieved of 135 euros (I was only 8kph off a 750e fine!) and then getting follow up letters at home saying I still owed 135e, I vowed to take it a hell of a lot easier. Shame as the roads are perfect for making safe, fast progress but why make yourself an easy target?

When we drove to Millau at Easter this year I kept strictly to the limits between Calais & Paris, only once out into the middle of nowhere on the auto routes did I feel comfortable cruising at 90mph, still keeping it below a ton.

Off to the 'Ring tomorrow evening, France & Belgium will be taken at a gentle cruise as I CBA with the aggro. It helps that my car isn't that well suited to fast cruising (80mph = 4000rpm in 5th), I can imagine if I had something M powered/AMG it would be a whole lot harder.

[XJ Flyer]

itcaptainslow said:

It helps that my car isn't that well suited to fast cruising (80mph = 4000rpm in 5th), I can imagine if I had something M powered/AMG it would be a whole lot harder.

At 104 mph at those rpm in 4th and 120 mph in 5th and enough grunt to reach around 165 mph without much more effort even an old modified 1980's XJ12 makes that an understatement without the restraint of a Saint.Ironically at least the older 6 cylinder M5's were surprisingly low geared in that regard.

[XJSJohn]

XJ Flyer said:

itcaptainslow said:

It helps that my car isn't that well suited to fast cruising (80mph = 4000rpm in 5th), I can imagine if I had something M powered/AMG it would be a whole lot harder.

At 104 mph at those rpm in 4th and 120 mph in 5th and enough grunt to reach around 165 mph without much more effort even an old modified 1980's XJ12 makes that an understatement without the restraint of a Saint.Ironically at least the older 6 cylinder M5's were surprisingly low geared in that regard.

i had an early 80's V12 XJS with a 5 speed manual conversion, i found that the bodywork flapping in the wind was a good limiter to about 140mph

[k-ink]

XJSJohn said:

i had an early 80's V12 XJS with a 5 speed manual conversion, i found that the bodywork flapping in the wind was a good limiter to about 140mph

I found mine had a preferred maximum cornering speed. It often complained about my excess speed by creaking back at me

[Bluebarge]

XJ Flyer said:

braddo said:

speedking31 said:

France is a bigger country (>2 x UK) with a similar population to the UK. I always assumed that to facilitate travelling around that the authorities turned a blind eye to making progress. I guess with the developments of the TGV and the rise of the ecomentalists that that attitude is changing.

No, it's because they realised something had to be done to reduce the shockingly high level of road deaths in France. Hence the clampdown on speeding and drink driving during the past 5-10 years.

I don't think there was any evidence whatsoever of 'a shockingly high' level of casualties caused by speed on autoroutes.As opposed to drink driving and/or other suicidal type driving on RN and D roads.

Then you must have been in another country every summer, when the "chasse-croisee" brought multiple pile-ups and some shocking casualty figures. The French attitude to speeding nowadays is entirely down to wanting to reduce the death toll and absolutely nothing to do with "green" issues. Any number of French newspaper articles make that obvious.

[Dog Star]

itcaptainslow said:

When we drove to Millau at Easter this year I kept strictly to the limits between Calais & Paris, only once out into the middle of nowhere on the auto routes did I feel comfortable cruising at 90mph, still keeping it below a ton.

I've had the same experience in France and had the 135euro thing.

I used to live there back in the 80s and to be honest I treated the place as my own personal racetrack - these days I agree that it's simply not worth the aggro anymore.

90 on the autoroute should be fine (if it's 130kmh) - if your're nicked they have to knock 5% off so that's 144kmh (assuming your speedo is accurate) so you'd be being nicked for about 137kmh in a 130.

[Riknos]

All these huge speeds... I got clocked doing 79 kph in a 60 limit in a tunnel in the Swiss alps.

€100 fine and I had armed police take my passport off me and escort me into an office, not speaking a word of English, me not knowing a word of Swiss, and they made me sign something and kept me in the room for a while, all my friends outside being held back by armed police not having a glue what was going on!

They didn't appreciate our car had a smashed headlight and the bonnet held on with a bungee cord (Brightly coloured C180 )

[XJSJohn]

k-ink said:

XJSJohn said:

i had an early 80's V12 XJS with a 5 speed manual conversion, i found that the bodywork flapping in the wind was a good limiter to about 140mph

I found mine had a preferred maximum cornering speed. It often complained about my excess speed by creaking back at me

yea mine spoke a similar language .... it also appreciated me sending a telegram to the brakes warning them of impending use .....

[ecurie]

itcaptainslow said:

After being caught at Le Mans last year and having the unpleasant experience of being bundled into the back of a French rozzer car, relieved of 135 euros (I was only 8kph off a 750e fine!) and then getting follow up letters at home saying I still owed 135e, I vowed to take it a hell of a lot easier. Shame as the roads are perfect for making safe, fast progress but why make yourself an easy target?

When we drove to Millau at Easter this year I kept strictly to the limits between Calais & Paris, only once out into the middle of nowhere on the auto routes did I feel comfortable cruising at 90mph, still keeping it below a ton.

Off to the 'Ring tomorrow evening, France & Belgium will be taken at a gentle cruise as I CBA with the aggro. It helps that my car isn't that well suited to fast cruising (80mph = 4000rpm in 5th), I can imagine if I had something M powered/AMG it would be a whole lot harder.

Belgium "should" be fine. The police have announced that they will not issue any fines this week as a protest against a possible governement measure regarding the age they can retire.

[XJ Flyer]

Bluebarge said:

XJ Flyer said:

braddo said:

speedking31 said:

France is a bigger country (>2 x UK) with a similar population to the UK. I always assumed that to facilitate travelling around that the authorities turned a blind eye to making progress. I guess with the developments of the TGV and the rise of the ecomentalists that that attitude is changing.

No, it's because they realised something had to be done to reduce the shockingly high level of road deaths in France. Hence the clampdown on speeding and drink driving during the past 5-10 years.

I don't think there was any evidence whatsoever of 'a shockingly high' level of casualties caused by speed on autoroutes.As opposed to drink driving and/or other suicidal type driving on RN and D roads.

Then you must have been in another country every summer, when the "chasse-croisee" brought multiple pile-ups and some shocking casualty figures. The French attitude to speeding nowadays is entirely down to wanting to reduce the death toll and absolutely nothing to do with "green" issues. Any number of French newspaper articles make that obvious.

The usual link in that case being the specific and unusual situation in France of dense traffic then mixed with stupid drivers who were/are unsafe at any speed.

Just like here speed limits won't stop stupid drivers and 70-80 mph max is more lethal in traffic made up of a bunch of idiots than something being driven properly and running in relative isolation at 120 mph + on a typically clear French motorway.Which probably explains why those French 'pile ups' were/are mostly,if not all,made up of shopping cars and sometimes a few coaches and/or trucks none of which were even capable of the types of speeds being discussed here.

[XJ Flyer]

XJSJohn said:

k-ink said:

XJSJohn said:

i had an early 80's V12 XJS with a 5 speed manual conversion, i found that the bodywork flapping in the wind was a good limiter to about 140mph

I found mine had a preferred maximum cornering speed. It often complained about my excess speed by creaking back at me

yea mine spoke a similar language .... it also appreciated me sending a telegram to the brakes warning them of impending use .....

To be fair they do need some maintenance sometimes which treats things like bushes,shocks,bearings and brakes as consumables preferably replaced by upgraded competition parts.Although the scary bit is that the engine couldn't care less about the condition of the rest of the car.

[dcb]

Bluebarge said:

Then you must have been in another country every summer, when the "chasse-croisee" brought multiple pile-ups and some shocking casualty figures. The French attitude to speeding nowadays is entirely down to wanting to reduce the death toll and absolutely nothing to do with "green" issues. Any number of French newspaper articles make that obvious.

Ah, the French newspapers as a source of real scientific fact, eh ?

As any fule kno, the autoroutes are the safest form of road by far.

Something like ten times more deaths and injuries on ordinary roads,
even though the autoroutes are a lot faster and carry far more traffic.

In practice, French coppers don't seem to bother until 160 kph
in an 130 kph limit. Just pop the cruise on 99 mph and you
are fine. Even if they do bother, it's only EUR 90.

Which makes for civilised cruising, except around Calais where
almost all the bad driving is done by Brits. There, drop to 140 - 150 kph
and keep your eyes peeled for Brit lousy driving.

[rsv gone!]

bigkeeko said:

I`m not long back from Switzerland and to be honest I battered the Jeep on a bit thinking "So what if I`m flashed, I`m a foreigner". In saying that I was never over 190kmh and a lot of the normal traffic on the paid motorways was averaging 150kmh so I suppose we, as Brits take liberties. The amount of UK licensed cars `giving it some` was quite commonplace.

I don't meant to alarm you but the Swiss are the worst for chasing speeders.

http://zurichexpats.com/speeding-in-switzerland-th...

Make sure you take a different car/reg plate through Switzerland in future.