simon32 wrote:
There was a road tax in France called the Vignette instituted in 1956 to finance pensions
I must admit I never analysed French state budgets between 1956 and 2001, but usually when I hear about this, I also hear that the pensions didn’t see a single penny from the proceeds of that tax.
France is the highest taxed country in Europe, maybe in the world if you exclude corruption as a tax, and it is not known where it all goes. There is an audit office called La Cour des Comptes who publish regular reports of waste, but they have no enforcement power. The speed camera levies certainly did not all go to road safety initiatives and improvements in infrastructure. It is estimated that at least 50% went into the general budget.
Simon
Noe wrote:
approach Calais, the fast lane starts to be more dense than the slower ones
This really annoys me. You try to get off the ferry quickly and there’s hordes of tourists driving slowly (serves me right for not flying)
In France you’re supposed to carry extra equipment compared to the UK, like hi-viz jackets (sound familiar?). The UK companies selling the stuff say there are fines for non-compliance, but I’ve never heard of this happening.
simon32 wrote:
Now that the speed limit on non-dual carriage ways is limited to 80 km/h I would be careful. Most French regard it as a stealth tax
Essentially a péage on the départementales. This really slows down long cross-country trips.
I understand enforcement of speed camera fines for cars from other European countries has been happening for about ten years. Personal experience (in a French hire car) in 2008: <70km/h in a 50 was €330.
Who collected that fine? Was it collected by the UK or did you get a bill from France?
I went through several speed cameras near EDNY in 2015 (silly-low ones like 20km/h) and got a bill from the German rental company, IIRC.
Maybe @timothy knows whether the UK criminal justice system enforces traffic fines on behalf of France, or vice versa.
Peter wrote:
Maybe @timothy knows whether the UK criminal justice system enforces traffic fines on behalf of France, or vice versa.
I highly doubt (and I think these days it’s HIGHLY unlikely it ever happens).
As a datapoint, I have gotten my fair share of fines in France (on all of GB motorcycle, PT car, french rental cars), but never got anything enforced here. The only think I had to pay was the “admin” fee from the rental car companies.
I wouldn’t count on it. France has reciprocal agreements with many European countries:
https://www.autoplus.fr/actualite/PV-Exces-de-Vitesse-Radar-Portugal-Infractions-routieres-1522798.html
UK may be in the works.
Simon
An Italian friend of mine recently told me how easy it is now to log on to a French government website and pay your French speeding fines from another country. My reply was to say an American license plate makes that information useless 
The French would do better at collecting money from me on the Autoroute if their similarly automated toll booths would take any of the valid credit cards in my possession, or cash. Once in rural France (maybe on a Sunday?) I had to ride around the gate because after trying and trying, including enlisting the help of the man in line behind me, there was no way for me to pay. Another time I had to wait until eventually after perhaps 10 minutes a lady came out of the adjacent building and took cash.
There is no issue with paying speeding tickets using some facility of the country where the speeding took place, but to get the criminal justice system of Country X to enforce stuff on behalf of Country Y is a whole different thing.
There has to be some sort of treaty, and there can be issues e.g. what is a crime in Y might not be a crime in X, or the fine structure might be very different. If some non-UK country imposed say a €1000 fine for doing 50km/h in a 45km/h limit, I would be surprised if the UK was going to be pushing people through its Mags Courts collecting the €1000.
However, the only place outside the UK where I enjoy driving is some little Greek island, and the speed cameras in Greece (well, those I have seen which were all on a virtually empty multi-€-billion toll motorway out of Kalamata) have foliage growing all over them, so it is a fair bet they are not working at all
Same in Italy (lots of weeds around ‘autovelox’ cameras) but the Swiss put on quite a light show, ineffectually when applied to me except that I remember to slow down in the next village, which is a good thing. Another Italian friend living in CH did receive fines via automated camera and European licensing database through the post to her Italian address, but was advised not to pay them unless they arrived by registered mail with proof of delivery. Poste Italiane has a service reputation that apparently provides plausible deniability.
The issue with not paying the fine regardless of whether your own countries government recognizes or processes it, is that there is always the chance that it is recorded somewhere and comes to light if you are stopped by a human being on a future trip in that country. If the license plate is in a non-European format I think that is relatively unlikely.
Peter wrote:
Who collected that fine?
It was from the Trésor Publique, sent to my parents’ French address, which I’d used on the Avis rental agreement. No-one was around, and luckily a cousin or neighbour forwarded it so I could pay before late payment fees, bailiffs etc.
Actually, I now remember it was €375.00. I just posted a cheque, but I’m sure they also accepted telephone and online payment. As an impoverished student it hurt.
