Good on the gendarmes, as a proud recipient of a French speeding fine on a deserted country road in the middle of nowhere. But while road deaths are falling, it will be spun anyway you like in order to convince us all that speeding fines are saving lives.
Sadly the whole world needs revenue, and the easiest way to raise it is to fleece the great unwashed. Get used to it, there's plenty more to come.
We got stopped just outside Val D'Isere a few years back after passing through a mobile speed trap. They could not be bothered to do the paperwork once they saw the UK plates. They did indicate that any faster and we would have been in bother (I think +30kph is where they get nasty) but they just asked to calm down a bit a be safe. Very lucky as we were just leaving the outskirts and were ready to give it some! Long may it continue...........
I still haven't my licence back off the gits following a 4 week ban in June .... And being left by them in the middle of bloody nowhere - only Sir Roy D'Aprillia saved the day! written to them twice in French - no response
Gav, they return your licence to DVLA. I had to call them and they confirmed they'd received it. However they wouldn't send it out to me and I had to pay for a new one!
Do they ....? Frog told me my licence would be sent back to me by registered post after 4 weeks. They only took the photo card bit, not the paper bit.... Photo ID is due to expire in 4 months anyway so I'd have to renew it then - so I guess a trip down the post office to get a renewal form. Sigh.....
Unless it's changed since I got banned in France in 2009? Might be worth a phone call, apart from not sending me my licence DVLA were surprisingly helpful!
Those of you who've been done abroad...I'd love to hear how you got nicked, what part of Europe, rural or main road, what bike, what speed, etc. In decades of knocking across the continong I've been pulled a couple of dozen times at least, and the sum total of all my fines is £17 - earned a very long time ago when ze germans still hadn't heard of euros. I struggle to understand how people come back with terrifying stories of huge fines, lost licences and even impounded bikes.
Mine was a hidden radar trap, a deserted road on a Sunday morning no far from Magny Cour. 174kph in a 110kph limit. Instant 6 month ban, 750€ on the spot fine, and a court appearance in France a few months later. They've clamped down on speeders in recent years, much to my cost. Still, I had no excuses and was bang to rights, so nothing to do then take it on the chin and accept I was in the wrong.
A few years ago, before he was president and when he was minister of whatever it was, Sarkozy got tough on speeding. It had to be said that with the same population, a far inferior traffic density and a far superior road network, the French had been wiping themselves out on the roads at at least double the rate of the British. Cue more speed traps, heavier fines, laser binoculars etc. France hasn't been the same since.
Sunday afternoon 4pm - glorious sunshine on a deserted motorway 50kms from Swiss border in the Alsace. Cruising along at 100/110 - slowed down to speed limit trough some deserted roadworks and once clear back up to cruise speed. Pulled within a mile by gendarmes in an RS Megane Done for 176kmh - instant 130 euro fine and banned on the spot for 28 days - licence confiscated and left in a Lay By on the side of the autoroute in the middle of nowhere!
Camera clipped to Armco in Bavaria. In rental car, gets the flash-flash, says oh dear. it seems a neighbour took a letter in for me from Germany where they wanted €200 for doing 120k in a 100k zone. been back a couple of times since, and got through customs/passport control with no worries. guess they couldn't be arsed chasing for €200, and as I have not received any letters, guess I got off lightly. gendarmes sound a bit rough, though. Is it an anti-Brit thing?
I got pulled doing well over 100mph in a 50kph limit, the copper gave me a good mouthful and left. Either I'm doing something very right (I don't speak a word of french) or everyone else is doing something very wrong. I really don't get it at all.
I guess you were just lucky - or I was unlucky - the cop that busted me was a miserable jobs worth - I can't really complain - I broke their law and got done end of - what I was pissed about was the fact that had I been on my own I'd have been screwed - it was 4pm on a Sunday in the middle of nowhere in rural France. He just left me in a lay by with a dodgy looking bunch if pikeys in a van parked up next to me. Mind you good job he didn't clock Roy 3 miles back from where I got stopped - I won't say how quick it was - but it would have been handcuffs and prison! By contrast - we got nicked in france in 2007 as well - the cop gave us 1 fine and insisted that we all contribute to it and even posed for a pic with us on the side of the motorway!!
I wish you would, otherwise we're learning nothing. I raced a french bike cop at speeds up to 140mph...naturally I let him win!
