speeding ticket

Read other discussions on this subject elsewhere on this forum. The long and short of all the verbiage is: You should pay your legal obligations. 45 euro is a pretty cheap speeding ticket these days. Look on the tickets for a website and then use google translate to get the gist. If you don't pay, they will increase, and they could sic a collection agency on you. The biggest problem I see is arranging payment in euros. See if you can pay by credit card over the net, probably with a 5% service charge.
https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/italy/traffic-ticket-more-than-a-year-later-consequences-of-not-paying

I was ticketed on the causeway going over to Venice by a radar camera. Hertz charged me $45 service fee to tell the police who had the rental car and where I lived. At least the Italians' letter was in English. They wanted paid by wire transfer in Euros to their checking account direct. And there are payment services online that can charge the amount of the ticket and forward the funds for you.
I honestly don't know if non-payment will cause any repercussions. They're not going to extradite you for a couple of speeding tickets. For 90 Euros it's easiest to just pay'em and go about your day.

Just out of curiosity, how fast were you going when you passed the cameras? Does it tell you how far over the limit you were going? I'm driving in France in a couple of weeks.

We got one speeding ticket in France, and it contained a website address -- website had an English translation which clearly stated fine amount and the date on which the fine would increase if not paid. French tickets are easy to pay by credit card (instructions on website) and they do allow for the time it takes to mail the tickets.

Pay the ticket. We all make mistakes, just own up to it and pay.

Perhaps no legal repercussions, but certainly moral ones. Do the right thing and pay the ticket. It's called taking responsibility for your actions.

I kept the two tickets we got from France in 2012 and looked at them to help answer this question. If they still use the same white forms highlighted with green, at the top is Avis de Contravention au Code de la Route. On the right hand side in a box labeled Vitesse is the limit (Limitée à) and how fast you were going (Enregistrée à). You can run anything else by Google Translate to get the gist of what happened.

On the back under Avertissement is a caption that says Pour payer l'amende, vous avez le choix... The first bullet under that is Par Internet with an address (www.amendes.gouv.fr) where you can pay using your Visa or MasterCard. I was concerned about Google translating when I went to that website, but it automatically popped up in English. You may have to click on the language.

I had to put in the No d'Avis de Contravention (speeding ticket number) for each ticket. That is printed on the Carte de Paiement (payment card) at the bottom of the page which is intended for people mailing in their payment. When I paid, I got a Fine Payment Proof to print as a receipt. That was all in English. The speeding ticket number appears as the E-payment no: at the top of the receipt, so it is easy to be sure you are paying the right fine.

Our tickets also were for 45 EUR each. According to the tickets, we went 112 km/h in a 90 km/h zone on the A75 somewhat south of Clermont-Ferrand heading toward Montpellier and 100 km/h in a 90 km/h zone on the RN100 between Remoulins and Avignon. That information was in a box on the left side of the form labeled Lieu de l'Infraction.

You do need to pay the fines and just chalk it up to experience. We add the cost of any tickets to the cost of car rental. See the recent link on the topic of tickets already cited in a response above.

Be sure to tell your credit card company you are going to be charging something in France before you pay, or your CC might be rejected because they think it is a fraudulent charge.

A ticket for 10km/h over is pretty strict! I'll keep it under the limit for sure.

Lo, sure was nice of you to post all that!

Nordheim: France is very bad for cameras, and unlike some countries they don't warn you with signage. Watch carefully on freeways for sudden speed reductions near cities and when approaching toll plazas. Traffic light intersections are also monitored.

Some GPS systems include camera warnings.

Incidentally, research is mixed on whether enforcement cameras make roads safer. They are mostly there to support civil service pensions.

Actually, road deaths in France are down significantly since the implementation of radar and cameras. The first few years there were sign warnings, as well as GPS warnings. The GPS warnings have been illegal for several years--and no longer on updated models or when you update your own. The warning signs were removed about the same time. That said, it's been effective--except for a curious spike of 19% July 2015 over July 2014. If pensions get paid too, all the better.

Here's an example of research showing enforcement cameras increase crashes. http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/47/4781.asp

Interesting article on Virginia Beach's red flash cameras.
Is there an inference that applies to all the radars on all the French autoroutes? How does one apply to the other?

Lo, next time don't rent a Formula Ford.

We received a speeding ticket after our March 2014 trip to France. As I recall, it was for less than 10 km over the limit (I'm thinking more like 5 km). We were pretty surprised that we would get a ticket for being so close to the limit, unlike the leeway you get here in the U.S. (at least in Oregon).

But the ticket was only for 35 euros - much less than a speeding ticket here. We paid - and we'll be sticking closer to the posted limits on our trip to France next month. :)

Bets: The money spent on research into transportation safety is globally second only to medical research. Well, I just made that up but it's a huge international brain effort. The fact that an easy correlation is not there means it probably isn't there since PhDs from everywhere are looking and relooking. Just an observation, in the US states with an over the top traffic enforcement saturation culture do not necessarily have safer roads than lower enforcement states that are adjacent. Also, locals learn where the fixed cameras are and drive accordingly. 50% of camera fines in France go to tourists.

Is the assertion that 50% of camera fines go to tourists an opinion/guess or a proven fact?

If 50% were accurate, it would be including all those Belgiums, German, Dutch, and Brits pulling trailers down to the coast, as well as all the non-FR trucks. The term "tourist" may not be accurate but does dredge up an image of someone targeted for profit. How about drinking and driving is down, as are traffic deaths. That's enough for me.

Link to the (nearly) 50% (in summer months) figure

http://www.drive-france.com/blog/speeding-fines-france/

"The European Commission’s figures show that tourist drivers throughout Europe account for just fewer than five percent of the cars on the road yet account for fifteen percent of the speeding offences.

The problem is MUCH worse in France where speeding offences committed by Non-French drivers accounts for a quarter of the total annually and nearly half during the peak holiday season."

The next sentence says: "They believe that it 3x more likely that a “foreign” car in France is going to break the law than a French one and they are rightly annoyed about it." So, are they targeting "tourists" or are they targeting those who violate the law and that happens to be disproportionately tourists? Yes, locals might know where speed cameras are but how is that different from people in the US who are local to an area and know the spots where state troopers hang out to catch speeders?

Or maybe, as we have seen, there are too many tourists who rent cars in foreign countries and have no idea of the traffic laws, and don't think (or bother) to learn them,so they're more likely to get caught violating them.

In France now and picked up a car yesterday to toodle around the south. I am constantly reminding hubby to watch his speed. We were using the autoroute with a speed limit of 130 kmh and telling him to keep it around 125...I couldn't get over the number of people flying by doing about 140. Maybe they know where the cameras are. Our rental has an integrated gps and some times the speed on the gps says one thing and the road signs say another, so you need to keep an eye out.

Btw, rented from europcar at Avignon tgv (beforehand via auto Europe). Easy as pie. Our train was two hours late (told it was suicide by train and some trains were four hours behind). Guy at the counter was super nice. We rented an automatic and got a Citroën cactus! It's an electric gas hybrid. It's a bit disconcerting when it 'turns off' when you stop at lights. Takes a bit to get used to, but hopefully will be much better on diesel! Super easy getting out of the station area and right on the highway.

Hi Nicole P.... have fun on the lovely smooth autoroutes. Just remember that the speed goes down in low visibility or rain. 110 kph max on the autoroute in those conditions.

Have a wonderful trip....

Actually engines turning off at lights is standard in newer European cars not just hybrids. Much easier to get used to with an automatic.

Worry more about exceeding speeds in stretches with speed reductions than exceeding the maximum speed which is easily satisfied with cruise control.

Thanks Nigel..the gps was actually set by the person before to avoid tolls and we spent an hour driving thru towns and around more roundabouts than I can count! As our arrival time got later and later i switched to not avoiding tolls. Which made the journey much shorter in terms of km and arrived about 45 min sooner (since we were in a hurry to get to our Airbnb). I can't remember where we got on the highway but the tolls were 13 euro but worth it for the speed and lack of roundabouts. :)

Hubby is def going to figure out the cruise control today. I will say I'm not sure how useful it will be as even on the autoroute we were coming up on slow people a lot and had to be constantly slowing down. On car rental day, he was just more worried with figuring out how to drive a strange car. We didn't use it at all yesterday as we spent the day wandering carcassonne.

I am wondering if speeding tickets are likely on all roads in France, or just the toll roads and bigger roads? Leaving for France and Italy soon, renting a car in Nice, and poking around small villages in Provence for a week. Aim to stay off large roads, do I need to be absolutely law abiding everywhere?

"Do I need to be absolutely law abiding everywhere?"

What a strange question. You can choose to abide by the law or not but be prepared to pay the price if you don't. Away from the autoroutes (toll roads) on the "departmental roads" (those roads numbered with a "D") there are marked speed limits, and lower limits as you approach towns. It's as well to pay attention to these signs and enjoy the countryside you came to see.

I get what you are saying. You don't want to break the law but were wondering if there were places where you wouldn't have to worry so much. When looking at scenery and traffic seems to be flowing by its easy to flow with it. I was on I 95 in South Carolina once, looked down and was going 85 with a ton of people passing me. I was shocked. I rarely speed so I really had no idea I was going so fast.

do I need to be absolutely law abiding everywhere?

It is funny that somebody should come on and ask how law abiding they should be.

I was just reading that France has now ordered several hundred more speed cameras, and the article also said that they also have ordered several hundred dummy cameras to go with them

So you will never know if that flash comes with a ticket or is just a light show....

The most interesting thing to me is that they also announced that they have started using drones for speed enforcement, and that they do often specifically target cars with non-French number plates. Apparently many British have a heavier foot than I.

One of our French tickets was on a "big" A road. One was on a "small" (R)N road. It was back in 2012, so some roads still had warning signs. We saw them on tiny 2-lane roads as well as on larger multi-lane ones. My understanding is that most of the warning signs are gone now. Keep your speed down.

I you want to see what these roads are like, do a Google Maps search for just about any town in France. Zoom in on roads of different designations. Switch to Google Earth. You will see pictures of the roads with vehicles on them.

My favorite warning sign was one as we entered a little village near Verdun. Most we had seen showed kmh. This one indicated how fast we were going by a smiley face, a frowny face and a grim face in between. I hope that's still there!

The cartoon character LED signs are actually quite frequent on small roads in various European countries and here in the UK.

Because I grew up in the age of video games, and I am male, I and a number of my mates tend to think more of these as a challenge and a game rather than a serious sign. It does help, of course, to know the local territory well and know where the fixed and mobile cameras are.

Then it is a question of posting two speeds in the readout and getting the right faces in the right order. It doesn't count if the neutral (horizontal smile) comes up.

I can say after having just spent ten days tooling around the south of France...you may want to abide by the speed limit, but what I am assuming are locals don't. Tailgating is awful. And they will just zip by you at first chance and merrily speed off down the road. I guess they know where the speed cameras are.