Driving EU Mad

Apparently, Britain is resisting moves to harmonise the prosecution of motoring offences across the EU. Mrs L got caught speeding just outside Lodève the other week. Actually, if there had been harmonization, she would have been able to kick the notice into touch as it took them nearly three and a half weeks to notify her, rather more than the fourteen days laid down in the UK. It came as a nasty shock as she hadn’t realised that she was speeding. Now here, we come to the crux of speed traps, they are nothing to do with safety and everything to do with raising funds. I know exactly where they caught her and the 50kmh limit is not clearly sign posted. Indeed, it is not clear where it ends and the 90kmh starts – you have to assume that it is the signpost for the end of Soumont. There is no sign until you get past the roundabout to the A75 indicating any speed limit at all. I assume then, that it is 50kmh, but it isn’t clear. Mrs L was travelling at 59kmh, we are told. The second point is that had they really wanted to reduce speed and therefore increase safety (ha!), they would have been visible, but no, they hide in a small area at the side of the road around a bend, where the retaining wall for the motorway conceals them from the road, so they can see you, but you don’t see them. It doesn’t help that Mrs L’s Clio has the kmh reading in red on a black background, making it difficult to see…

Anyways, as she has a French registered vehicle, there’s no getting away with it. Indeed, the whole thing is so biased that attempting to dispute it merely makes the fine rise exponentially, thereby discouraging it. The French attitude is pay it and forget it. Then there is another difference. In the UK, if you are not the driver, you are legally obliged to state who was. In France, you do not. So, had someone else been driving, she need only to have provided evidence that she wasn’t and let them whistle.

So, with one offence, we have picked up two significant differences, one favourable under UK legislation and one favourable under French legislation. Which one will apply to, say a UK driver caught in France? Or, the other way around?

Under the proposals, which will be put before EU transport ministers on Thursday, motorists caught committing an array of motoring offences from speeding to using a handheld mobile phone on the continent, would be fined at home.

The same would apply to foreign motorists caught on camera speeding in Britain. Some forces, including Kent and the Metropolitan Police, have had considerable difficulty in pursuing fines from cars with overseas number plates.

I would suggest that overall, this is a small price for the police to pay. Do we really want foreign police forces chasing us across borders for minor offences? They can already snatch us in the event that we break a law in their countries without having set foot there or without it being an offence in the UK via the hideous European arrest warrant. Do we really want more of this? Really?

It’s one thing to be caught at the time and have to cough up a fine, as happened to me a couple of decades ago in Austria, but if they don’t catch you at the time, do we want them pursuing us for trivial offenses that, frankly, shouldn’t be on the statute book at all;

…and motor cyclists who ride without a safety helmet.

Can we leave yet? Greenland did and look what happened to them.