Classic Road Angel has a UK only data base- just checked- so can't use it anyway.
I know about the camera near Boulogne having been flashed last year when only 3kph over the limit. The Michelin site is a good idea. Hope my new Michelin Atlas has got them in as well.
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I wasna fu but just had plenty.
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There was a link to print off an explanatory document for les flics. But if the data base does not go abroad it'll be into the boot when I hit Dover.
I'd take it out of the car altogether and leave it at home if I was you, but then I'm paranoid about continental traffic police!
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I'm paranoid about continental traffic police!
Paranoid about scowling Corsican-looking bikers carrying large-calibre automatic pistols? Why on earth?
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Why on earth?
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I know, Lud, it's so very silly of me. Put it down to irrational instinct, or "bad vibes", as you like.
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More afraid of the unfamiliar cameras on M1 , M25 and M20 en route to Dover.
Is the GPS navigation device a rare sight in France then?
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I wasna fu but just had plenty.
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No it isn't rare.
For about 18 months French supermarkets have been selling an allegedly legal warning device with a camera database in it - NOT a radar detector - for 99 euros.
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I believe this is the page you are looking for:
www.controleradar.org/anti-radar.html
GPS camera locating is OK, any form of detection devise is certainly not.
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More afraid of the unfamiliar cameras on M1 M25 and M20 en route to Dover.
Fair enough, but the worst you'll get from them (assuming you keep it under a ton or so) is 3 points and a fine. M le Gendarme, on the other hand, if caught on a bad day, in need of his lunch and disinclined to listen to explanations from rosbif tourists, might feel moved to relieve you of your car.
Extreme example perhaps, but it has happened in the past.
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Last time I drove in France was about 15 years ago. From the horror stories and dire warnings, I just wouldn't risk it again. It seems les flics have a profound attitude problem with the English. Pile your stuff onto Ryanair and forget about it.
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I must have done about 10,000kms on french roads over the last 15 years.
Never ever had a problem with authority, despite being an obvious rossbiff.
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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Can't rival that probably TVM, but I've done plenty of miles in France and I too have never had the slightest grief from frogplod.
It is said though that they are a bit heavier about rural speeding than they used to be. Adopt the local native rhythm and you won't go too far wrong.
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"Last time I drove in France was about 15 years ago. From the horror stories and dire warnings, I just wouldn't risk it again. It seems les flics have a profound attitude problem with the English. Pile your stuff onto Ryanair and forget about it. "
Ye Gods!
As I said in another thread - first time in a car in France was 1963, first time I drove there was 1967, driven there every year since and now go about 4 or 5 times a year including about a month in summer. Don't know how many miles, but a fair few - maybe 4000 per year.
I have been stopped once by Gendarmes and that was last year. Obviously a young lady gendarme under training who thought we were a French car (Xantia). She was them joined by a senior Gendarme, who smilingly apologised, then started chatting and asking us about Cits and whether they were popular in Angleterre, was it strange driving on the left etc. He bid us a cheerful farewell, wished us a happy holiday and waved us back out onto the road.
Apart from that, driving in France is like driving here in the '60s. Relatively quiet roads (many motorways you get the impression they are your own private road! - and yes, I go at peak holiday times), Motorways with perfect surfaces, service areas with good coffee, excellent food at reasonable prices, picnic areas with tables, chairs and exercise areas, even a motor museum and rugby museum in a couple and a bird sanctuary in another. In other words, true rest areas. The N and even D roads are excellently maintained (compared to ours!) except in villages where they use a carp surface instead of speed humps. Despite the scare stories, speed cameras are very rare compared to UK and the limit on autoroutes is 81mph (in the dry) anyway.
Parking in seaside resorts and towns and cities is plentiful and cheap, often free at lunchtime and also on bank holidays, Sundays etc. As an example, in Angouleme last year we parked free right outside a cafe/restaurant right in town centre, enjoyed a long leisurely lunch for less than a fiver and paid 1 euro for parking.
Obviously there are a few problems. Riviera in holiday time is jammed, some cities do have congestion, Paris, Bordeaux etc and the main drags from Paris to Riviera is a pain on a couple of peak weekends per year, but it is quite possible to spend a month in France in August without ever being stuck in a traffic jam, without ever sitting in a queue of more than five or six cars at traffic lights (yes I include big towns in popular tourist areas) and without ever encountering a roundabout with traffic lights.
The French believe in keeping their traffic flowing, out of major cities public transport is carp so cars and free movement and ability to park is essential so, if you plan to go to France you can plan to average 80mph on the motorways and actually achieve that. If you want to stop in a village/town on the way you can drive into the centre and park (free?) next to the shop/cafe/bar/ you want to visit. If you have a caravan on the back, the supermarket carpark will be big enough to just drive in and park easily, and what's more, the supermarket/hotel/B&B/ campsite you want to find will be clearly signed off the motorway/N or D road.
Of course, all this is complete fiction - please do not take your car/motorbike to France, it will immediately be confiscated, crushed and you will face a fine of thousands of pounds and life imprisonment.
Please leave those roads empty for me - I'm off on Monday - if you don't here from me for a while I (and wife and children ) have probably been guillotined for having a satnav.
Oh, by the way, there is no such thing as a plod "in need of his lunch", in France the slightest pangs for lunch mean lunch and the country stops for lunch usually from about 12 'til 3ish - the M-ways will be empty for a couple of hours with no sign of a Gendarme or anyone else
I find driving in France quite pleasant - not that I would go on about it.
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Phil
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>>.... M le Gendarme on the otherhand if caught on a bad day in need of his lunch ...
Poppycock and balderdash. Any Frenchman in need of his lunch will go and eat. You could murder his chief inspector in front of his nose and if he was really hungry he'd still go straight to lunch, otherwise he'd handcuff you to a lamp post and deal with you after lunch.
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I read often, only post occasionally
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Fair enough, maybe I was wrong about the lunch thing. Perhaps I was getting muddled up with Orwell's description of Parisian pawnbrokers. Tend to have the attitude described myself, i.e. that the world could be about to blow up, but I'm hungry, so it can just wait. Gordon Gekko be damned.
What I was getting at was that even speaking fairly reasonable (when practised - rusty at the moment) French, I wouldn't feel confident explaining what a device that is not obviously a sat-nav machine was doing in my car.
I should clarify that I have driven many thousands of miles in France (and elsewhere in Europe, come to that) since being old enough to do so, and have never yet come to the attention of the po-leece there, but have heard enough tales of how they operate never to want to!
And yes, empty roads and cheap diesel are definite plus points, as if they were needed :-)
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"but have heard enough tales of how they operate never to want to!"
Ok Paul,
no offence intended, but there are a hell of a lot of "tales of how they operate" which have no basis in fact (all those truckers, caravanners and camper drivers who have been "gassed by robbers while they slept and robbed") yet no-one has ever been caught or convicted and you would need to be a senior anaesthatist (sp?) to be able to apply the correct dose without killing someone/being spotted to get away with it.
Trust me, take a drive to France, have a fantastic meal for a few quid, stock up with the cheap wine/beer/cheese/coffee/paté,etc, be served by polite, deferential waiters where waitering is regarded as a "proper" job, sit on an old fashioned sea-front where there are no amusement arcades/load music/drunks etc (only a few miles from Calais - Wimereux, Ambleteuse, Wissant etc), stay in a good hotel where the double room (not per person) is less than £50, maybe only £25, and a fantastic meal is £20 - or moules mariniere is £5 (with a beer or 2!)
Try it - couple of days- or just overnight - things have changed in 15 years.
Jeez - don't I go on!
Can't wait for Monday - me, missus, children (well, they are nearing 30!!) are going for four days and the cost of everything will be less than 2 days in Scarborough in a carp hotel that can't even serve coffee after 9pm
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Phil
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Trust me take a drive to France have a fantastic meal for a few quid...
I shall be doing exactly that on 7 July - we have a gite booked for a week in a village near Domfront in Normandy, and I. Can't. Wait. Have driven through Normandy many times on the way to somewhere else, but never stayed there, so looking forward to it no end. Am v jealous that you're going on Monday. :-)
(BTW, it was Spencer who said he last drove there 15 years ago, I think? Not me, anyway. Was in Haute Savoie 3 years ago, which was the last proper holiday we had in France)
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"it was Spencer who said he last drove there 15 years ago, I think? Not me, anyway. Was in Haute Savoie 3 years ago, which was the last proper holiday we had in France) "
Oops, sorry. Been sampling the red stuff in anticipation of next week!
"we have a gite booked for a week in a village near Domfront in Normandy,"
Lovely area, enjoy the local produce - especially the alcoholic type (and those empty roads!)!
regards
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Phil
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Lovely area enjoy the local produce - especially the alcoholic type (and those empty roads!)! regards
Ooh, forgot about the cider! Top tip - thanks!
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>> Lovely area enjoy the local produce - especially the alcoholic type (and those empty roads!)! >> regards Ooh forgot about the cider! Top tip - thanks!
Noo - The Calvados.
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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Sometimes, just sometimes (when the gardening gets a bit onerous), I have to remind myself why I live here. Thanks for putting me straight, PhilW.
Just outside the town centre at Domfront is a little suburb called the 'quartier de St Jean' (I think) with an odd little church and two Logis de France hotels next door to each other just along the road. The lorry traffic is a bit horrendous but the food in both is brilliant.
Hope this helps...
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"Just outside the town centre at Domfront is a little suburb called the 'quartier de St Jean' (I think) with an odd little church and two Logis de France hotels next door to each other just along the road. The lorry traffic is a bit horrendous but the food in both is brilliant."
And they are so expensive - I don't think!!
www.logis-de-france.fr/uk/recherch/index-fast.php?...1
rooms max price 55 euros for 2, menu up to 21 euros - you mean I would have to pay about £40 per person for a room and 3 course meal? I could get a Travelodge and burger for that here.
or
www.hoteldefrance-fr.com/
rooms up to an astronomical 50 euros (for 2) and a 4 course menu for 15 euros, or if you want to pay the maximum - 33 euros.
Blimey, that's about 18 quid for the room and 20ish quid for a four course gourmet meal per person. Or, if on economy, 18 quid for the room and 10 quid for the meal.
Rip-off France??
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Phil
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I think where you can find annoyed French police is around Calais. Lots of Brits unloading from the train and the ferries, hardly any of whom have bothered with GB stickers or headlamp deflectors. The last time I went my wife and I counted and we reckoned only 10% of cars were suitable adorned. It strikes me as bad manners to go to another country and not follow their rules - we certainyl expect them to follow ours.
A few years ago I picked up a little too much speed on holiday in France in my Xsara VTS and crested a hill on an empty motorway travelling at a little over 120MPH, to find a police speed trap just over the brow. I braked fairly quickly and was amazed to see the policeman lower his camera, shake his head and wag his finger at me. And that was it! No impounding of the car, no enormous million euro fines, just a stern look. It did the job, I felt foolish and continued my journey at the posted limit. I think driving a French car helps.
Incidentally, the Xsara really attracted attention wherever I parked it. I'm not sure why, there were plenty of French ones around but it being a right hooker really seemed to intrigue people.
Terry...
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God I wish you'd all shut up.
Perhaps we can do a little swoop when my long-delayed old age pension kicks in.
Then again, perhaps not.
:o{
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I'm off there tomorrow too for a week. Tunnel @ 10.15!
Kids and I can't wait - they have been promissed a trip to the Musee de L'Air et De L'Espace at Le Bourget.
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I have never EVER seen any continental registered car driving in UK with beam deflectors fitted!
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nor with country registration sticker!
But we are wandering off the subject here
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