France in Focus

We received a speeding fine last week. Apparently we were caught speeding somewhere a long way a way that we've never even visited, and we were shopping locally at the time and day.

We thought OK someones cloned our number plate - so off to the gendarmes we go. They took a photo of our car and called up the photo on the camera that supposedly caught us speeding.

It turns out a mistake had been made when reading the number plate, where ours is a K the car in the photo has an X. Told to contest the Amend and tell them what the gendarmes had said.

All straight forward so far - that is until one tries to contest the blasted fine.

After about an hour on the website, we eventually managed to find somewhere to explain things but................ we had to find €130 before they'll even look at it.

I just hope they pay it back to us - I'm not a very happy bunny

@ Char, could have been worse: " EU motorist fined almost £11,000 after falling foul of London Ulez rule " .

Department count your blessings continued: be glad you don't go to London by car. Draconian fines as we know. I spoke to someone recently who had done his best to stay out of those "dangerous" zones with his old Volvo diesel. Alas, just a wrong turn, especially in a strange city, it remains keen attention. After a few weeks in Scotland, two fines turned up in his letterbox at home. And unfortunately you then pay the full amount if these are not received within 14 days, £500 instead of the lenient (?) on-time payment rate of £250. Times two.....diesel comes at a price.

Modern times: computer says......the system knows better. How ICT impacts society.

It's really annoying that despite "them" making a mistake, you have to pay up first then try to get a refund.
Good luck Char

Let's forget all those invisible cameras. computer systems and constantly changing regulations. Much more visible a network of checkpoints around our ULEZ cities. There are examples from the recent past. You are now entering a ULEZ zone.

Blaze wrote: ↑Thu Aug 10, 2023 12:00 pm It's really annoying that despite "them" making a mistake, you have to pay up first then try to get a refund.
Good luck Char

Does it work if you just say, " I've got proof it wasn't me. See you in court" ?

L Austin France wrote: ↑Thu Aug 10, 2023 1:23 pm

Blaze wrote: ↑Thu Aug 10, 2023 12:00 pm It's really annoying that despite "them" making a mistake, you have to pay up first then try to get a refund.
Good luck Char

Does it work if you just say, " I've got proof it wasn't me. See you in court" ?

No it doesn't. The Avis de Contravention quite clearly states the procedure for challenging the penalty - submit with the penalty amount.

You won't get to court either without paying up and the penalty will have increased on two more occasions in the intervening period.

It deters unsubstantiated claims of innocence but penalises the genuine cases such as Char's. C'est la vie, en France, malheureusement!

see this https://tinyurl.com/2r8ketbz

I once accompanied a colleague to a military police station in Germany in connection with a speeding fine sent to them by the German police.
She had a white Peugeot 205 and was shown a photo of a white Peugeot 205 and presumed that it must have been her in her car although she hadn’t been in the town where the photo was taken for months. She was sorting out how to pay the fine when I told her to stop as the photo was not of her car. The military policeman wasn’t happy and claimed that she had already agreed that the photo was of her car. I pointed out the first obvious mistake, the photo was of an all white 205 hatchback, her 205 cabriolet had a black roof. The vital clue however was a subtle difference in the photo’s numberplate and her own, her’s had a 24 in it, the photo a 42. After several minutes and going outside to see her car the policeman finally agreed that a mistake had been made. The mistake had been made in translation, somebody had heard the number drei hundert vier und zwanzig and written it down as 342 not 324, the confusion caused by Germans saying four and twenty not twenty four. If only they has remembered listening to nursery rhymes. Mind you they probably wouldn’t have known what a sixpence was either.
I was amazed that too so similar cars shared such similar numberplates.
Good luck, Char, in getting your fine refunded.

I'm sure it'll be fine in the end, Char. It's just so bloody annoying. I hope you got some written confirmation about the no. plate from the gendarme.

Wishing you masses of good luck, Char, what a pesky nuisance to have to pay up in advance!

One of the things I dislike about France is the custom of when a mistake is made you are expected to pay first, then dispute. It's the same with utility bills. Around here there's always a story in the paper about someone who's been charged for an eyewatering amount of electricity and has to pay upfront before contesting. In one terrible story last year a young family had moved into a new house and were getting the combined electricity bills for the whole lotissement. They couldn't afford to pay so their electricity was cut off. The electricity company agreed that it was obviously a mistake but until the 'debt' was paid off they couldn't reinstate their supply.