Fines in France for not having driving licence

On Wed, 11 Feb 2004 16:52:45 +0000, Steve Haigh
wrote:

Ollie Clark wrote:


That was a couple of years ago so attitudes may have changed. YMMV. It
doesn't half improve your French when you're trying to blag your way out
of a fine! ;-)

A risky, but sometimes very effective strategy is to play dumb (comes
easily to me) and not speak any French. A friend who is bilingual in
French and English claims to always speak English to the Flics in the
hope that they will not be arsed to try and explain to him what he had
done wrong. I'd hesitate to say this was a good idea, but it has been
know to work.

I think speaking very poor, heavily accented, French is probably an
even better ploy, as they'll appreciate that you've made the effort
and are trying to be cooperative.

--
Ace (brucedotrogers a.t rochedotcom)
Ski Club of Great Britain - http://www.skiclub.co.uk
All opinions expressed are personal and in no way represent those of the Ski Club.

Ace wrote:
"David wrote:

My advice to anyone driving in France is to carry some cash- say £300.00
because if you pick up one of the "on the spot fines" ( typically £60 to
£120) and you only have a credit card you are likely to be driven to a cash
machine and then left to make your way back to your car. If you weigh this
up it could be quite a proformance and very inconveinient. I dont know what
they would say about not having a licence with you but as long as you have
oter identification how bad could it get?
Take care and enjoy yourselves. David

IME they tend to get you to drive to the atm in your own car,
following behind, while they hang on to your licence.


Tactics seem to vary. I have seen people get away with the smaller
fines just by pleading they had no cash or Eurocheques. Escorting cars
to cash machines is not effective as they would need a fleet of cars
on standby to do this. They normally try and hold onto a piece of
documentation and hope that you will return for it.


But yes, carrying enough cash money is a good idea.


Seconded. Place the max fine FFR5000 / EUR750 in an envelope in the
glovebox.

"Nigel (Remove NOSPAM)" wrote:

In Germany if you are involved in an accident and cant produce your
put in the slammer until you can . I know this for a fact from
personal experience :-)


How can you produce your licence etc if you're locked up?

I'm picturing the scene from the Great Escape with Donald Pleasence
forging papers...

Its none of the waste of time & resources softly softly approach you get
with the wooden tops in UK !
Most Euro countrys's you have to prove your ID and then they have to
establish it before they let you go!


Which is why London was always a popular destination for terrorists
who needed to lie low for a while.

Basically you have to get someone to put up bail (if you cant yourself)
& then report back with your docs ! It only applies to foreign drivers .


Most of the German laws in this respect (registration etc) are a
hangover from occupation.

I think this guy would be OK as long he is not driving a
Slovakian-registered Lada loaded with electrical goods. The flics, any
flics, nearly always want to see a driving license if you are driving
a vehicle with Eastern plates.

The French are not brilliant at close scrutiny of documents and I have
handed them vehicle documents where the plates do not match, etc. Same
with tachometer - they cannot read them and you just hand them the
'official' set. Things will get worse for truckers with this goddamned
cock-sucking digital camera business however.

In fact this is just the start. With digitisation and computerisation
there will come a lot more irritations. I have a friend who escaped
the East by jumping overboard in Hamburg harbour. He took the identify
of a dead man but fortunately no-one has ever compared the records of
births and deaths and figured out he is dead.

The Italian paperwork system was best. Just hand over cash with the
documents. The more inept the forgery, the more the cash.