French Motorway Speed Cameras

There are lots more cameras on ordinary French roads now so I don't think that's going to help.

i know that, but the thread is titled French Motorway Speed Cameras so i assumed that was what we were talking about.
 
It's funny how many tourists I see here, furiousloy pressing the button with the british flag beside it shouting in English. All those language buttons do is change the LCD discplay :D

:hapybnce:
 
It's funny how many tourists I see here, furiousloy pressing the button with the british flag beside it shouting in English. All those language buttons do is change the LCD discplay :D

.....and then, if they do by chance hit the right button, going into stunned silence when a disembodied voice talks to them IN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE :eek:
 
There are lots more cameras on ordinary French roads now so I don't think that's going to help.

I was cycling in Germany a couple of years ago and saw a policemen with a speed camera hiding in a bush by the side of the road!

I understood a few years back when I lived in S Ireland, they were changing the law, so that points 'earned' in say the UK on an Irish car would be transferred to that Irish Licence and vice versa. I doubt anyone would bother following up parking offences.

As regards Germany, they don't subscribe to this high visibility marking of speed cameras as practised in the UK. They are usually well hidden. Very rarely, I see the police using hand held guns when they want a bit of fresh air.

Not as bad as when the transit corridor between West & East Germany (Berlin) was operating in communist times. The speed limit was, I think 90 km/h and the East German police even had a car sitting in the ditch below the road covered in a camouflage net checking for speeders. Only way to spot the check was the array of antennas sticking out of the car!!

The most critical areas to watch for German speed cameras are in 30 km/h zones (especially near schools - cameras often only there for a few hours and then moved) and the other favourite is on autobahns, where there are road works and the speed limit is reduced to 50 or 70 km/h. That has caught my wife out a few times. They don't always warn of speed cameras and sometimes it is easy to miss a speed limit restriction approaching road works, so it is safer to reduce speed if you see road works there.

There is a growing trend in 30 and 50 km/h zones to replace speed cameras with signs, which flash up your actual speed with smiling or frowning face as appropriate.

I haven't driven on the French roads for a while, but the speeding fines have always been horrendous on their toll routes.

Grey Beard
 
.....and then, if they do by chance hit the right button, going into stunned silence when a disembodied voice talks to them IN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE :eek:

I could hire me kids out in the summer to stand next to the peage as translators :augie
 
Basic mistakes are always the most entertaining:thumb2

And the French don`t mess about with this stuff now, they are serious.

You can probably double what you have just spent on your entire holiday.

jesus life is hard and expensive! :(As the originator of this post I feel like well s**t now as this was a carefully budgeted but bloody expensive skiing holiday.

I took a hire car as some of you may recall that on an earlier post I drove 15 miles in a TD4 freelander after putting petrol in it.:blast Injectors are not happy hence the hire car. Current cost £80 refurbish cost per injector.

Should ahve stayed at home. Now I will be watching my bank account evry hour seeing how negative it can go.:thumb

Thanks for the info - and safe riding this weekedn which should be sunny [but not in my bank account]
 
There is a growing trend in 30 and 50 km/h zones to replace speed cameras with signs, which flash up your actual speed with smiling or frowning face as appropriate.
We've got one of these at the 50kph limit as you come into our village.

Makes a sad face regardless of speed though, even at 30kph:blast
 
I've noticed a trend in French villages for there to be a handheld trap just as you are about to exit the village. Typically, you have passed all the houses and have a couple of hundred metres of open land before you hit the village boundary and the friendly gendarmes are waiting in a ditch ready to catch the unwary and impatient.
 
I've noticed a trend in French villages for there to be a handheld trap just as you are about to exit the village. Typically, you have passed all the houses and have a couple of hundred metres of open land before you hit the village boundary and the friendly gendarmes are waiting in a ditch ready to catch the unwary and impatient.

Yes referred to as 'the hunt' by locals who always seem to know when and where the gendarmes will be setting up. Usually set up at 14.00 to catch those returning from lunch and will breathalise as an added bonus. Become a feature in my village. Gendarme, Gen d' arme (man at arms)
 
I've noticed a trend in French villages for there to be a handheld trap just as you are about to exit the village. Typically, you have passed all the houses and have a couple of hundred metres of open land before you hit the village boundary and the friendly gendarmes are waiting in a ditch ready to catch the unwary and impatient.
Very common, and they're good at hiding too.:mad:

On the other hand you rarely see speed traps on the open (90kph) road. Might be just a statistical thing - there's an awful lot of open road in France.
 
Never seen them in the villages round here, but to be honest if anyone is gonna do more than 50 through the village, then can't wait a matter of seconds before opening it up again then throw the book at them....:D
 
Just checked - nothing so far but then could be a little too early:thumb2

Can take months as someone at the car hire firm has to wade through all the speeding fines they receive and match them up to individual contracts. It's a busy time of year for any hire firm servicing the airports near the Alpine ski resorts. They'll catch up between the end of the ski season & Easter :)
 
It's always good to see the diligence with which the control-freak bureaucrat will pursue compliance with a pointless regulation when there's a fine attached.
 
It's always good to see the diligence with which the control-freak bureaucrat will pursue compliance with a pointless regulation when there's a fine attached.

Or someone who as a guest in another country breaks its laws. I would expect a different response if it was those bloody foreigners burning up the M25:augie
 
..........burning up the M25:augie

Has it changed over the years then? My last recollection/experience with the M25 was traffic moving at a snails pace, drivers exchanging newspapers through the side window having read their own copy twice over whilst at a stand still and of course the odd idiot or two trying to pull a fast one by shooting up the emergency lane. The only thing 'burning' was tempers. :mad:
 
Has it changed over the years then? My last recollection/experience with the M25 was traffic moving at a snails pace, drivers exchanging newspapers through the side window having read their own copy twice over whilst at a stand still and of course the odd idiot or two trying to pull a fast one by shooting up the emergency lane. The only thing 'burning' was tempers. :mad:

Nope, nothing's changed - we just had variable speed limits (camera enforced) so the authorities can (for a bit of a laugh) suddenly ratchet the limit down to 40mph on a clear, open motorway and have a good laugh at the resulting chaos as everyone stands on the brakes to stop getting nicked.

It's a great system.
 


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