Caught for speeding Germany

[jm doc]

DBSV8 said:

MattS5 said:

Yep, if I’m driving, and get stopped, quite possibly.
Albeit not if I’ve moved address and updated my licence.
If I fly in to Germany, they won’t have driving convictions attached to my passport record as they cannot match the 2

they can and do in Holland .try flying through Schipol airport with outstanding driving fines from NL and you will be asked to Cough up by those nice immigration officials

And how do they link a passport with "John Smith" to a car driven by "John Smith"?
There's no address in your passport and there's no date of birth in your registration document.

[MattS5]

jm doc said:

DBSV8 said:

MattS5 said:

Yep, if I’m driving, and get stopped, quite possibly.
Albeit not if I’ve moved address and updated my licence.
If I fly in to Germany, they won’t have driving convictions attached to my passport record as they cannot match the 2

they can and do in Holland .try flying through Schipol airport with outstanding driving fines from NL and you will be asked to Cough up by those nice immigration officials

And how do they link a passport with "John Smith" to a car driven by "John Smith"?
There's no address in your passport and there's no date of birth in your registration document.

Totally this, as I said earlier, but it seemed to be discarded.
They’ll be matching on blood group next.......

[EU_Foreigner]

Not that difficult to collect a lot of relevant information centrally in Gemany.

Few examples:

- Did you pay toll anywhere or get petrol there they have the link from car reg to credit card
- Did you stay in a hotel anywhere where you parked, you have the link from car to passport number as the hotel will have asked for that
- Now for complete paranoia add your picture to the data set from the speed camera or from any cashpoint that was used.

You only have to watch that travel fare evasion program in London to see what data is actually out there where they know every movement, based on credit card use, to ticket barrier, to CCTV shot of when the ticket was used and so on.

[jm doc]

EU_Foreigner said:

Not that difficult to collect a lot of relevant information centrally in Gemany.

Few examples:

- Did you pay toll anywhere or get petrol there they have the link from car reg to credit card
- Did you stay in a hotel anywhere where you parked, you have the link from car to passport number as the hotel will have asked for that
- Now for complete paranoia add your picture to the data set from the speed camera or from any cashpoint that was used.

You only have to watch that travel fare evasion program in London to see what data is actually out there where they know every movement, based on credit card use, to ticket barrier, to CCTV shot of when the ticket was used and so on.

You really think they are going to do all that for a 50 euro speeding ticket?
I think you need to get your tin foil hat back on.

[EU_Foreigner]

It is all automatic.

Remember these were European IT projects, not one of those infamous UK ones.

[Pericoloso]

Where are these German tolls ?

Never paid one in Germany.

I have an Umwelt sticker though.

[va1o]

I've just had one through, are the admin fees normal? It's €70 + €28.50

Was in a hire car rather than mine. Not quite clear if I need to return the form or just transfer the money and forget about it.

[Bluehawk]

va1o said:

I've just had one through, are the admin fees normal? It's €70 + €28.50

Was in a hire car rather than mine. Not quite clear if I need to return the form or just transfer the money and forget about it.

I've just had a letter from my rentalcar company from when i was in germany 2 weeks ago advising of an admin fee for passing on my details to the police for a "traffic violation"

Will let you know when i get the letter from the police.

[jm doc]

Bluehawk said:

va1o said:

I've just had one through, are the admin fees normal? It's €70 + €28.50

Was in a hire car rather than mine. Not quite clear if I need to return the form or just transfer the money and forget about it.

I've just had a letter from my rentalcar company from when i was in germany 2 weeks ago advising of an admin fee for passing on my details to the police for a "traffic violation"

Will let you know when i get the letter from the police.

The Dutch are quite sneaky about this. So they send a request to the hire car company who then charge you for providing the details, The police then tell the hire company they have failed to provide enough details to identify the driver and fine them the amount of the speeding ticket. The hire company just pay up and then charge it to you. Quite clever but very naughty I suspect. I didn't challenge it when it happened to me though, just paid up. Four kph over the speed limit in an average speed zone.

[br d]

br d said:

I have a different issue. I got a German speeding fine through and paid it by Bank Transfer following the instructions carefully. A couple of months later I got a repeat of the same fine and when I checked the transfer failed to go through. I tried again, triple checking the details, and once again it failed.
The letter states that if you have any issues, queries or you want to fight the penalty you must write back in German explaining things. I obviously can't do this.

So I want to pay, I'm happy to as I want to visit Germany again but I can't. has anybody else had problems getting the payments through?

A quick update on this.
After several more failed attempts to pay the ticket I took it to my Bank. After an hours faffing they said it is literally impossible to pay the fine because the IBAN and the BIC are not regulation numbers, you cannot enter the ones provided on the ticket into an international payment form.
And the address of the bank on the ticket also returns an error.

So they have sent me a speeding fine that I cannot pay. When I return to Germany later this year I will take it with me to show any plod if I come up on the system, although I doubt it will do any good.

[vaud]

br d said:

A quick update on this.
After several more failed attempts to pay the ticket I took it to my Bank. After an hours faffing they said it is literally impossible to pay the fine because the IBAN and the BIC are not regulation numbers, you cannot enter the ones provided on the ticket into an international payment form.
And the address of the bank on the ticket also returns an error.

So they have sent me a speeding fine that I cannot pay. When I return to Germany later this year I will take it with me to show any plod if I come up on the system, although I doubt it will do any good.

Have you considered emailing them if you want to pay the fine? Google translate is good enough (send the English and German version)...

[MattS5]

Man, just leave it, what they gonna do?
You've tried to pay it, you havent been able to.

If (massive if!) you get pulled over later this year, explain you couldnt pay, they are a first world country, you'll have an opiton to settle it whilst there without doubt.
If you got a driving offence ticket in this country and didnt pay the fine, I can't imagine the police taking you into custody and pressing charges for non payment! They simply won't be intestersted.

Germany is not Dubai in terms of its judicial system. You wont be the first to have not paid, and you wont be the last.

Now sit back and await the flury of replies from people who will tel you you'll get arrested upon touch down at the airport by biometric testing machines etc etc.....

[AmitG]

vaud said:

br d said:

A quick update on this.
After several more failed attempts to pay the ticket I took it to my Bank. After an hours faffing they said it is literally impossible to pay the fine because the IBAN and the BIC are not regulation numbers, you cannot enter the ones provided on the ticket into an international payment form.
And the address of the bank on the ticket also returns an error.

So they have sent me a speeding fine that I cannot pay. When I return to Germany later this year I will take it with me to show any plod if I come up on the system, although I doubt it will do any good.

Have you considered emailing them if you want to pay the fine? Google translate is good enough (send the English and German version)...

That is exactly what I would do. Email them in both German and English, use Google Translate or Bing Translate, both are pretty good and will produce something that they can understand.

Alternatively, phone them (if there is a number) and ask "Hallo, ich komme aus England, sprechen Sie Englisch, bitte?" If they are nice then maybe they will speak English or pass you to someone that does...

[martinbiz]

MattS5 said:

Man, just leave it, what they gonna do?
You've tried to pay it, you havent been able to.

If (massive if!) you get pulled over later this year, explain you couldnt pay, they are a first world country, you'll have an opiton to settle it whilst there without doubt.
If you got a driving offence ticket in this country and didnt pay the fine, I can't imagine the police taking you into custody and pressing charges for non payment! They simply won't be intestersted.

Germany is not Dubai in terms of its judicial system. You wont be the first to have not paid, and you wont be the last.

Now sit back and await the flury of replies from people who will tel you you'll get arrested upon touch down at the airport by biometric testing machines etc etc.....

This

I really can’t understand the sudden panic about foreign tickets that seems to have taken hold of everybody lately

FFS They are not going to be waiting for you with guns and an arrest warrant at the borders.
I have collected 2 for speeding and 1 for going down a restricted road over the last few years in Italy and just ignored them, never heard anything back and visit at least once, sometimes twice every year with out any issues

[eeLee]

br d said:

A quick update on this.
After several more failed attempts to pay the ticket I took it to my Bank. After an hours faffing they said it is literally impossible to pay the fine because the IBAN and the BIC are not regulation numbers, you cannot enter the ones provided on the ticket into an international payment form.
And the address of the bank on the ticket also returns an error.

So they have sent me a speeding fine that I cannot pay. When I return to Germany later this year I will take it with me to show any plod if I come up on the system, although I doubt it will do any good.

I would expect the IBAN is OK but the BIC is too short. Try adding a couple of Xs on the BIC.

I see this all the time paying bills in Austria from my account.

[anonymous-user]

As I said, having lived in Germany they will not forget, if you ever get caught again it will be ok their system and you’ll have to put the charges on top (that don’t stop adding up).

I had 9 tickets in my 3 years, so know the process quite well.

Have you tried transfer wise to pay? That’s what I used to do, UK bank - TW - German bank acc, used it to pay tickets, tax and bills.

[chopper602]

I got a friend with a Euros bank account to pay my German fine - only 20 euro. My bank wanted a £20 admin fee to make an international IBAN payment.

[RDMcG]

We all know how efficient the internet is about tracking people, and the world has changed completely. Not paying tickets is asking for trouble.

A while ago I was going through US immigration and he mentioned I had an outstanding ticket in NY. ( I always pay tickets but this was an odd one).
Not a big deal, I cleared it when I was in the US that day- was not overdue.

More and more systems are integrated now, so I would err on the side of caution. I had a couple of flashes in Germany in May but have not yet received any tickets. We will see. Of course I will pay them.

I was driving on Canadian plates, so may take a while.

[martinbiz]

RDMcG said:

We all know how efficient the internet is about tracking people, and the world has changed completely. Not paying tickets is asking for trouble.
.

Why do you say this, have you experienced “trouble” or is this just supposition? I would in no way lambast people if they would rather pay, that is entirely their choice. Of course it is much easier to get to someone with today’s technology, but getting to someone and then enforcing a penalty are two completely different things. All they can do if you don’t pay is sell the debt to a Uk collector, who may send out lots of scary and official looking letters, but it is just bluff and bluster, in reality they have zero powers to enforce the fine

[wibble cb]

Do you have the swift code and iban you are being asked to pay to, I use these things daily, I may be able to see what the issue is

Wibble CB