France’s speed cameras are infuriating – and that’s why they keep getting vandalised

It is on a corner, just after the speed limit changes from 70km/h to 50km/h, and if you do not know it is there, it will catch you every time.

It is especially annoying because just after the radar, the speed limit goes back to 70km/h. The whole thing seems designed to catch drivers out.

When I first arrived in this area, it had been spray-painted. When it was eventually repaired, someone almost immediately covered it with a canvas cover. When that was removed, it got knocked over. Finally it was replaced by one of those low triangular speed cameras.

That proved to be a major mistake. It got covered in slimy brown substance. Almost as if a farmer had dumped an entire manure heap on it, and then taken a hammer to the camera.

I do know about France's terrible death rate on the roads, by the way. In the first five months of 2025 alone, 1,154 people died in road accidents in mainland France and 6,200 were seriously injured.

I agree that speeding kills, I understand the need for law and order, I am not an anarchist. But put me behind the steering wheel and I find radars as annoying as the next person. The way they are hidden, the ongoing removal of warning signs, the seemingly pointless changes of speed limits, the arbitrary nature of the fines… Zut alors! Mer…credi!

I also guiltily admire the nerve of French drivers, taking on the authorities in a sustained campaign of civil disobedience. They are not d’accord and so they will not put up with it. Out they go in the small hours, armed with paint and cardboard, to make their feelings known.

Widespread vandalism

It is not just around here. When I lived in Lyon there was a radar on the slip road off the bypass that someone obviously took against. It was not easily accessible but some furious road warrior spray-painted a huge arrow pointing out the offending machine, and the word RADAR (yes, all in capitals) right across three carriageways.

You have to admire that kind of fury. And when the authorities moved it a couple of hundred metres up the road, the perpetrator came back and repainted their warning.

There is another particularly hated radar on the way to Bordeaux. It has obviously grievously offended someone: it is almost always parcelled up in cardboard and a great deal of gaffer tape. Sometimes it is spray-painted neon orange. Sometimes it is leaning drunkenly to one side. Amazing.

In my fantasies, I love the idea of attacking a radar but in reality, I would never dare.

Meanwhile, the radar near Limoges came back on steroids: a massive black thing on a pole two metres high and at least 15 cm thick, set into a large patch of fresh concrete.

It lasted 48 hours. I drove past it this afternoon and it is already lying face down in the nettles surrounded by small orange traffic cones.