French speeding ticket

[3nduro]

So went skiing end of April and got flashed by a speedcamera in the car

at long last a french speeding ticket has now arrived at my home address asking for EUR45 ...its all in french ..not a word of it in english.

Now in canada in 2005 I got pulled and got issues a ticket ...........and each year I bin the request for $CAN180 they send annually !

I am however more likely to return to france at some point so guess I should pay it ...no ?

[AndrewEH1]

I'd pay them both.

[Carlson W6]

How did the French get your name and address?

I didn't think the cross border co-operation between the EU and DVLA had begun yet,
and is unlikely to now due to Brexit.

[3nduro]

it was a hire car ... but a swiss one ... and the credit card I used got cancelled so maybe they couldn't auto bill me for it.

[EU_Foreigner]

Is it worth it? At the channel, you passport is sometimes scanned by the French. That would flag things up eventually.

[Vizsla]

3nduro said:

So went skiing end of April and got flashed by a speedcamera in the car

at long last a french speeding ticket has now arrived at my home address asking for EUR45 ...its all in french ..not a word of it in english.

Now in canada in 2005 I got pulled and got issues a ticket ...........and each year I bin the request for $CAN180 they send annually !

I am however more likely to return to france at some point so guess I should pay it ...no ?

€45 sounds a bargain to me - last time I got nicked in France (cash on the spot, the nice gendarme told me the Government needed the money!) it was €90 and that was about 8 or 9 years ago. Pay up, it's pennies!

[RDMcG]

I pey all speeding tickets,foreign or domestic.. You never know when you might return and it is worthwhile being on the right side of the law.

[Motorrad]

Straight in the bin like all junk mail. If they can't be bothered sending it in a language you're likely to understand how can you possibly follow what's going on?

Unless you're planning on going back there in the same car and doing some more speeding I don't see what the problem is.

[3nduro]

maybe you are right ... I could ignore it ..

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/cars/article-29...

.especially as I can't read it !

[bad company]

I would bin it unless you have a private number plate which you will transfer to your next car.

[quoteunquote_sir_]

You'll be fine ignoring it until you aren't. I used to drive on the continent a lot for work in hire cars or my own car/bikes. I received a similar letter in Dutch regarding some relatively trivial fine of €80 or something like that (they paint their speed cameras green and stick them in bushes which isn't very sporting of them, I was probably bimbling about a bit lost and drifted over the limit). I thought I'd be conscientious and attempt to settle the fine but couldn't work out how - there was some foreign bank transfer info that I couldn't get my head around and neither could my bank so I gave up. For a time, if I needed to be in the Netherlands I would just fly to Belgium, rent a car there and drive across (thanks Schengen!) but after a while I assumed it had been written off and started going direct. All was well until I was the first person off the boat at Hook of Holland and my passport number was entered in the computer. They were awfully nice and Dutch about it and gave me the choice of paying up what was by then something like a €300 fine on the spot and being on my way or refusing to pay it, in which case they would confiscate my car, put me in jail for a week or two, and then let me out and offer me the first choice again (probably with a €100 surchage for the prison food). Tricky choice then. Annoyingly, the fine was about two and a half years old and would have expired after three or something like that.

tl;dr you'll probably get away with it if you travel infrequently to the country where the fine was incurred. Until we leave Europe and then who knows?

[bad company]

quoteunquote_sir_ said:

You'll be fine ignoring it until you aren't. I used to drive on the continent a lot for work in hire cars or my own car/bikes. I received a similar letter in Dutch regarding some relatively trivial fine of €80 or something like that (they paint their speed cameras green and stick them in bushes which isn't very sporting of them, I was probably bimbling about a bit lost and drifted over the limit). I thought I'd be conscientious and attempt to settle the fine but couldn't work out how - there was some foreign bank transfer info that I couldn't get my head around and neither could my bank so I gave up. For a time, if I needed to be in the Netherlands I would just fly to Belgium, rent a car there and drive across (thanks Schengen!) but after a while I assumed it had been written off and started going direct. All was well until I was the first person off the boat at Hook of Holland and my passport number was entered in the computer. They were awfully nice and Dutch about it and gave me the choice of paying up what was by then something like a €300 fine on the spot and being on my way or refusing to pay it, in which case they would confiscate my car, put me in jail for a week or two, and then let me out and offer me the first choice again (probably with a €100 surchage for the prison food). Tricky choice then. Annoyingly, the fine was about two and a half years old and would have expired after three or something like that.

tl;dr you'll probably get away with it if you travel infrequently to the country where the fine was incurred. Until we leave Europe and then who knows?

I don't understand how your passport number linked you to the original offence. The camera photographed your car but how did they get your passport number ?

[bashful]

Motorrad said:

Straight in the bin like all junk mail. If they can't be bothered sending it in a language you're likely to understand how can you possibly follow what's going on?

Just wondering, would the same logic excuse French drivers from paying tickets acquired in the UK, sent in English?

[EU_Foreigner]

bad company said:

quoteunquote_sir_ said:

You'll be fine ignoring it until you aren't. I used to drive on the continent a lot for work in hire cars or my own car/bikes. I received a similar letter in Dutch regarding some relatively trivial fine of €80 or something like that (they paint their speed cameras green and stick them in bushes which isn't very sporting of them, I was probably bimbling about a bit lost and drifted over the limit). I thought I'd be conscientious and attempt to settle the fine but couldn't work out how - there was some foreign bank transfer info that I couldn't get my head around and neither could my bank so I gave up. For a time, if I needed to be in the Netherlands I would just fly to Belgium, rent a car there and drive across (thanks Schengen!) but after a while I assumed it had been written off and started going direct. All was well until I was the first person off the boat at Hook of Holland and my passport number was entered in the computer. They were awfully nice and Dutch about it and gave me the choice of paying up what was by then something like a €300 fine on the spot and being on my way or refusing to pay it, in which case they would confiscate my car, put me in jail for a week or two, and then let me out and offer me the first choice again (probably with a €100 surchage for the prison food). Tricky choice then. Annoyingly, the fine was about two and a half years old and would have expired after three or something like that.

tl;dr you'll probably get away with it if you travel infrequently to the country where the fine was incurred. Until we leave Europe and then who knows?

I don't understand how your passport number linked you to the original offence. The camera photographed your car but how did they get your passport number ?

Hire car company would have those details though?

[bad company]

EU_Foreigner said:

Hire car company would have those details though?

Really, would the hire car company have your passport number?

[NDA]

bad company said:

EU_Foreigner said:

Hire car company would have those details though?

Really, would the hire car company have your passport number?

Very likely they would have that as the proof of ID document.

[EU_Foreigner]

Europcar wanted drivers license as well as passport for my last rental.

[quoteunquote_sir_]

bad company said:

Really, would the hire car company have your passport number?

Yes. Driving licence photocard plus printout, UK Passport, some even take fingerprints and something like a €2000 pre-payment auth on a credit card in case you bend their car. You're taking an object that cost their company maybe €40,000 out on their country's roads and could probably hit 200KPH easily enough. There's a lot of liability there, even with whatever insurance that they carry. If the local authorities come knocking, they want to be able to push liability to you, even if you are home in the UK by then.

As a footnote, if you get pinged in your own car, that's a whole other matter. But you still could get tugged at the port of exit if you're unlucky and they got a record of your number plate. Some countries in Europe have agreements to provide details to other European Governments on speeding infractions too. Of course, once we have left Europe this will be different again - and no doubt it will be more complex and expensive to be legal driving a UK car on the continent.

[Ozzie Osmond]

In most countries the hire company is liable for fines if the driver doesn't pay.

The hire contract almost certainly says you are liable for any fines PLUS a significant handling charge if they have to deal with it. And, of course, they already have your credit card details on file...

[Osinjak]

Hmm. I got flashed in Alsace earlier this week in my own car, can I expect a ticket in the post?