Speeding in France
Discussion
hi rsvmille
i cover quite a large number of miles in both france and GB. Up until now there was no jurisdiction between the french and British autorities. When you got caught speeding in france, Monsieur le kind gendarme just got you to pay a hefty fine and told you get on with you jouney at a more resonable speed. If the british authorities caught a french driver speeding it would generally be too much effort and paperwork to deal with a fine so once again got you are told to run along. There was never any talk of points or driving ban. But its all about to change. First or all there is is going to a 'points' understanding between France and GB, so you will be able to loose your points in france. This will eventually become an europeen scheme that will result in us all having europeen liscenses where we can loose points in every country that we visit. I'm not sure however how seriously the British authorities are taking this matter , but the french are taking it very seriously. I dont quite know what the time scale is, for this change to happen but i would imagine the first phase will be inplace in the next couple of years or so. As it stands at the moment the gendarmes are getting paticularly upset at people doing over a ton. If i were you i would avoid speed in excess of this figure. Long gone i think are the days when you could cruse down french autoroutes at 120 ish mph without anybody so much as lifting a finger.
The other thing that is of concern, is that detectors are very much fround upon in europe. The fine in france is the confiscation of the car or a 5000 euro fine plus a night in the cells.
hope that helps.
Cheers
James
i cover quite a large number of miles in both france and GB. Up until now there was no jurisdiction between the french and British autorities. When you got caught speeding in france, Monsieur le kind gendarme just got you to pay a hefty fine and told you get on with you jouney at a more resonable speed. If the british authorities caught a french driver speeding it would generally be too much effort and paperwork to deal with a fine so once again got you are told to run along. There was never any talk of points or driving ban. But its all about to change. First or all there is is going to a 'points' understanding between France and GB, so you will be able to loose your points in france. This will eventually become an europeen scheme that will result in us all having europeen liscenses where we can loose points in every country that we visit. I'm not sure however how seriously the British authorities are taking this matter , but the french are taking it very seriously. I dont quite know what the time scale is, for this change to happen but i would imagine the first phase will be inplace in the next couple of years or so. As it stands at the moment the gendarmes are getting paticularly upset at people doing over a ton. If i were you i would avoid speed in excess of this figure. Long gone i think are the days when you could cruse down french autoroutes at 120 ish mph without anybody so much as lifting a finger.
The other thing that is of concern, is that detectors are very much fround upon in europe. The fine in france is the confiscation of the car or a 5000 euro fine plus a night in the cells.
hope that helps.
Cheers
James
Speed Matters | Motoring News | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff