Uh oh, traffic ticket from Germany!

[aja8888]

I received another foreign letter in the mail. Wife handed it to me, saying that perhaps it was the receipt from the German police in Aachen.

Nope! It's from Switzerland. Arghh!!!

Yep, another speeding ticket. This one is from the police in Basel. The letter is addressed to Phoenix, AZ, France with Zip Code of 00000, same as the earlier German ticket. And same as with the earlier letter, the excellent cooperation of the French and US Postal Offices ensures that the letter gets in my hand.

I opened it up and read it. This one is also in French. It has no copy of the radar photo like the German letter. It says I was clocked doing 68 km/hr (42 mph) in a 60 km zone (37 mph) on an Autobahn. After deducting 3 km/hr for margin of error, they determined that I oversped by 5 km/hr (3 mph).

Hence, the fine shall be 20 Swiss Franc, or US$ 21. The letter includes a voucher for my convenience. All I have to do is to fill in the number of my preferred credit card, and mail it back to them.

My wife said I should pay it, and I will. The trip was more than 2 months ago. Are there more foreign tickets coming my way? Sigh...

Wow! I would send them a postal money order so that in case you owe some other government money for the illegal acts, they won't bill your credit card.

 

[explanade]

Administrative overhead may be more than the fine.

Normal car rental agency would charge you twice that for looking up their rental records to give your address to the authorities.

 

[Scrapr]

We were driving across Europe in April after picking up "my" Volvo at the factory. The factory loaded US maps on the navigation so I had to go out and get a Garmin. The really nice thing about the Garmin is that the speed zones were displayed. And a few speed cameras

Really helped with speed zones changing. Only got flashed once (in Germany) for poking along in the hammer lane

No tickets have arrived yet

 

[Bestwifeever]

That almost sounds like a scam--who did you rent the car from? Hope that's the end of the tickets!

OTOH When we left London our very worried pre-arranged driver had to pick us up in a bus stop lane (no busses were there) and said he would be getting a camera-generated parking ticket--law enforcement cameras are everywhere and the photos are probably difficult to appeal, if that is even an option.

 

[Fermion]

It would be a sophisticated rental car scam since they had a photo of him driving for the first ticket. I suggest using Uber on your next trip

 

[explanade]

Uber is being pushed out of many countries and cities.

Or are never in some like Spain.

 

[Bestwifeever]

It would be a sophisticated rental car scam since they had a photo of him driving for the first ticket. I suggest using Uber on your next trip

See, I read this "I opened it up and read it. This one is also in French. It has no copy of the radar photo like the German letter." to mean there was no copy of the radar photo. Perhaps I am too cynical.

We drive in Europe every year or so--we could get a ticket for going too slow

 

[NW-Bound]

That almost sounds like a scam--who did you rent the car from? Hope that's the end of the tickets!

OTOH When we left London our very worried pre-arranged driver had to pick us up in a bus stop lane (no busses were there) and said he would be getting a camera-generated parking ticket--law enforcement cameras are everywhere and the photos are probably difficult to appeal, if that is even an option.

Both of my tickets came directly from the police. The 1st one from German police in Aachen, and that 2nd one from Swiss police in Basel.

The car leasing agency is not involved at all, as the police had my address from the French registration record (hence the letters were in French).

 

[BigNick]

Speaking of pedestrians on the street, I saw that Italian drivers were respectful of pedestrians in a crosswalk; if they saw someone about to step off the sidewalk at a marked crossing, they stopped. Not so with the French drivers in some cities. In fact, in Strasbourg, I saw a crossing that required two traffic cops waving hand-held stop signs to make motorists stop. That's terrible!

OK, I found the photo that I took. The ASVP on their vests means "Agent de Surveillance de la Voie Publique", which means "Traffic Warden on Public Road".

Note the speed limit painted on the road: 30 km/hr (19 mph). If motorists drove really that slow, they would not have problem stopping for pedestrians.

The reason there are two people there to help people across the road is that there is an elementary school opposite the restaurant and bar, which you can see on Street View here. I'm guessing that you were there at the start or end of classes for the day; the ASVP turn up then to make sure the kids cross the road safely. That's also why that particular zone (Quai Finkwiller) has a 30km/h limit - however, some French cities are bringing in that limit much more widely.

 

[NW-Bound]

Ah, I guess you could locate the spot on Google Map using the name of the restaurant: Fins Mets Gourmands.

Isn't the Web great? One can find out almost anything.

 

[NW-Bound]

It would be a sophisticated rental car scam since they had a photo of him driving for the first ticket. I suggest using Uber on your next trip

Using Uber for a nearly 6,000-km road trip is going to be quite expensive.

I have done quite a few European trips using trains, buses, and metros, but this time wanted to visit more remote places not easily reached by trains. I didn't want to stand out on rural roads waiting for a country bus as that was the only mode of transportation into some of these towns.

More about that recent trip here: http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f46/my-recent-6-week-road-trip-through-europe-87337.html.

 

[BigNick]

Ah, I guess you could locate the spot on Google Map using the name of the restaurant: Fins Mets Gourmands.

Isn't the Web great? One can find out almost anything.

It's a deli - the name just means "High Class Delicious Food", which is to the point, if unimaginative. In fact it wouldn't have occurred to me to put that into Google. But in fact I recognised the street since it's only a couple of miles from my house.

 

[Texas Proud]

There might be an option to pay using your CC if you call...

I got a ticket on a new toll road near here.... most of them have feeder roads you can drive on, but not this entrance.... took the next exit, but that was not good enough....

The fined me $5 plus the 50 cent toll... I talked to them a pretty long time and they finally waived the $5 but would not the toll.... I paid with CC


Edit to add.... on our last road trip I got a warning ticket... speed limit was 70 and DPS clocked me at 77... usually they do not pull you over for less than 10 mph over... so was surprised... I though I was going about 75, but officer said it was downhill.... AND, in less than a mile the speed limit went back up to 75....

 

[euro]

I received another foreign letter in the mail. Wife handed it to me, saying that perhaps it was the receipt from the German police in Aachen.

Nope! It's from Switzerland. Arghh!!!

Yep, another speeding ticket.

My wife said I should pay it, and I will. The trip was more than 2 months ago. Are there more foreign tickets coming my way? Sigh...

Yep, I just returned from a trip to Italy/Switzerland/Austria and, with bated breath, I'm waiting for the tickets to come in - they always do...... . my only hope this time is that I rented the car in Italy and maybe their tracking abilities are not as efficient as in Switzerland or Germany.

 

[explanade]

Hmm, I did a lot of driving in different parts of Spain in April and July.

Keeping my fingers crossed though I think the last time I got something was in 2013 or 2014.

 

[braumeister]

You never know. My rental car was flashed twice during our UK travels in 2015, but I never got a ticket. I'm sure I was only doing at most 5 mph over the limit, but I don't know if they give you any leeway for a small difference like that. This was in Cumbria.

 

[NW-Bound]

It's a deli - the name just means "High Class Delicious Food", which is to the point, if unimaginative. In fact it wouldn't have occurred to me to put that into Google. But in fact I recognised the street since it's only a couple of miles from my house.

It's a small world, is it not? You have posted a photo of yourself, but I don't think I would have recognized you if I saw you on the street.

We were wandering in that neighborhood, looking to get to Barrage Vauban. We walked all around town, following the river encircling the inner city.

Strasbourg is a really nice town, and I am glad to have chosen it as a stop to spend a few days.

Hmm, I did a lot of driving in different parts of Spain in April and July.

Keeping my fingers crossed though I think the last time I got something was in 2013 or 2014.

April is too long ago. Not sure about July.

Perhaps Spain is more lax. I have read that people who overstay the Schengen limit choose to exit Europe through Spain or France and some other countries. The German and Swiss agents would look over the visitors' passport carefully and catch the misdeed, and they would be banned from future visits.

Just recall that my wife's nephew overstayed in France, and he said that they did not catch him at the airport on his return trip.

 

[Totoro]

Nice, traffic ticket discussion about my backyard

Few observations:

• Pay the Swiss, they will chase you to the ends of the earth. It's the principle of the thing (citizens pay, visitors should too).
• If you want to ignore tickets, Belgium, Spain, Italy is pretty safe. They just don't have their house in order. Just hope they don't intercept you during the speeding.
• Germany has this thing where they have to prove you were in the car, which is why they take a photo of the driver. In most other countries the fine goes to whoever the license plate belongs to, and it's the owners problem to prove it was someone else driving at that point.
• Rental companies in some countries (NL for sure) have a direct link with the authorities where they exchange address information. So they don't even see the fine. A handling fee of 7 euros or so is typically added anyway - even though the rental company only pays a few cents for this service.

BIC is indeed redundant in most countries, as it is part of the IBAN. Part of the confusion was/is that there is a plan to be able to move your bank account from bank to bank without changing the IBAN number (just like cell phone). It's to make switching banks easier. It's been shelved for now as far as I know.



In case of the Landesbanken these are actually consortia (cooperatives specifically I think), so they have a separate routing number per member.


The absolute cheapest way to transfer money overseas is the old friend trick: find someone that has a bank account in a European country as well as the USA. Bank transfers within the EU are usually free at retail level (SEPA = Single European Payments Area).


Interesting to see you get a credit card option from the Swiss - they sure make it easy to pay

 

[NW-Bound]

I already mailed back the voucher with a credit card number to pay the Swiss police.

Do not want to get arrested 5 or 10 years in the future when I happen to be within their border again.

Yes, the letter says that the owner of the car is responsible for the ticket, and that's me according to the French registration for this new leased car. And when I signed the lease, the French leasing agency had my passport info, and it was in the system somewhere. If the Swiss police wants to get it, it can. They may make me pay even more, or wait till I am within their border, or they may not.

For 20 CHF, I want to have peace of mind, and chalk this up to a cheap travel experience. I have kept both the German and Swiss police citations as souvenirs.

 

[Blue Collar Guy]

I guess the bright side is that you wont get points on your license for speeding, so no bump in insurance rates. 2 speeding tickets in the states would blow out your premiums.