No more speeding fines in post for UK cars in France

Drivers of UK-plated cars flashed for speeding in France are no longer receiving fines in the post.

Due to full Brexit as of this month, the UK has fallen out of EU cooperation rules on exchange of driver information on speeding offences for purposes of sending out fines.

A spokesman for the Interior Ministry’s road safety section said that fines for speeding by British drivers were suspended as of midnight of December 31, awaiting future negotiations on the point with the UK.

However “we do not yet have any perspectives as to when this work may start”, he said.

He said the previous information exchange regime was based on a 2015 EU directive which no longer applies to the UK.

“Exchanges with the UK started in January 2019 and that year 444,378 fines were sent out. We don’t yet have any data for last year,” he said.

That year British drivers were flashed more than any other nationality, thought to have meant tens of millions in fines for the French government.

At present due to Brexit, the French authorities have no right to retrieve the driver’s name and address from their numberplate.

As formerly they will only be fined - on the spot - if their speeding is identified by an officer in person with a portable device. The same applies now to other offences that cameras can pick up, such as going through a red light, not wearing a seatbelt or talking on the phone.

Some other non-EU countries do have bilateral agreements on this with France, including Switzerland and Monaco.

The information exchange regime in theory went both ways, ie. including French-registered cars flashed in the UK, however previously there was doubt as to whether the UK was in fact sending fines to France.

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