DeborahAnn

On Saturday we received a letter from Avis rental stating that our car was charged a traffic violation while in Germany this past May. The German notice form with explanation came today.

The best we can tell, as it's completely in German without an English translation, is that at some point my husband was driving 56 km in a 50 km zone.

Thankfully, the fine is only 15 euros but I can't tell on the form if it must be paid by a certain time, if I can pay by credit card or if it's OK to pay by cash. I don't want to go to the expense of a bank check in euros or a bank transfer if we can avoid that.

Is there an online website that might give a translation from German to English? I've used babelfish in the past. My Berlitz German phrase book and dictionary isn't very helpful for this form

I'm hoping someone "familiar" enough with speeding tickets in Germany can help us.

Thanks, Deborah

StCirq

Why don't you type the German in here so those who can read the language can tell you what it says. An online translation tool might help, but IME they are pretty awful.

Dukey1

GO TO GOOGLE and use the "language tools"

Dukey1

you could be waiting HERE for a German speaker for a while

DeborahAnn

Thanks for the comments. It's a very long form. I did try babelfish which was no help and then I went to Google which was very helpful.

I think what I need is someone either living in Germany or that has visited Germany that has received enough speeding tickets and knows the accepted ways to pay a ticket

Can I send euro cash (which would be the easiest and least expensive for us)?

There doesn't appear to be a "must be received by" date on the ticket payment. I don't want the 15 euro fine to increase because we didn't respond promptly.

Could someone please translate this, I took it from the payment form we received. I hope it tells me that I can send cash!!

name und sitz des uberweisenden kreditinstituts bankleitzahl

Den Vordruck bitte nicht beschadigen, knicken, bestempein oder beschmutzen

Thanks again for any help. Deborah

logos999

name und sitz des uberweisenden kreditinstituts bankleitzahl

Name and loction of the transferring bank, bank code

Den Vordruck bitte nicht beschädigen, knicken, bestempein oder beschmutzen

Please do not damage, bend, stamp or stain the form.

Thanks again for any help. Deborah
Nochmals Danke für jede Hilfe. Deborah

Of course you can send cash if you want. A bank transfer is the common way to pay.

logos999

Going over 55 in a 50 zone is very common. I never managed to trigger a speed camera with so little excess speed. Must have been cops.

DeborahAnn

logos---thanks for the help. It must have been our lucky day in the Bayern to catch the attention of either a camera or a traffic cop.

There wasn't an enclosed envelope with the papers. It would be helpful if we could do this online but there doesn't seem to be that option.

A member at our church is an elderly German speaking woman who will probably be able to help. She will get a good laugh out of my husband's "lead foot" when I show her his ticket

thanks again, Deborah

Christina

I'm surprised that would trigger a speed camera, also. Where I live in the US, the speed cameras are only tripped if you go 10 miles or more over the posted limit. 6 km is only around 4 miles over and where I live, I think they cannot guarantee statistically that is over given the parameters on the calibration.

kerouac

15€? What a bargain!

kerouac

I say this because I recently paid 90€ in France for going 52 in a 50km/h zone in Nancy, plus a 25€ service charge to Europcar;

nytraveler

15 euros - our parking tickets start at $100 and go up to $250 for egregious ones. And agree - I don;t see how they can say you were going 4 MPH too fast - the equipment isn;t that accurate. (In the US they would throw this out of court if you protested.)

logos999

Speeding up to 20km in excess of the max speed cost you 30€.
From there on, it gets expensive. No so much concerning the amount to pay, but the penalty points. Penaty points are the real reasons to avoid speeding fines. Really reckless drivers get taken off the roads that way. Austria is the same in that respect, Switzerland is expensive.

Going 6 kmh too fast and taking it to court isn't advisable. Speed guns aren't used but the camera needs to be mounted on a tripod standing on the ground. Inacccuracies are taken into account by substracting 3km from the result. So if they claim, you were going 56, you were actually going 59.
It's your job to prove to the court that the camera was malfunctioning..

Ackislander

I had to pay a ticket in Italy over the winter.

The reason they want your bank information is that most people will be paying this with an electronic funds transfer. I got a check cut in euros from my bank and just mailed it to Vicenza. It was cheaper, and it gave my branch bank a thrill since they don't do much of that kind of thing.

DeborahAnn

Thanks for the comments. Ron may have been going 59 km/h in a 50 zone because they did give us a 3 km allowance. Right now we are using google to try to translate both of the pages we were sent. We are not going to dispute the violation, all the info is correct about the car so we probably were speeding, just at that one moment!!

I'd like to have some idea of the wording because if I take it to my bank I'm sure I'll know a great deal more German than the person in customer service

I'm also going to send an email to AVIS---the kind traffic offense team that sent us the first notice. For the 15 euros they deducted from our credit card maybe I can have them work a little more for their fee

I'm thrilled to be paying only a 15 euro fine---I was thinking it could have be in hundreds of euros

Would it be a bad idea to just send cash and consider the matter resolved?

Ackislander, I try to avoid international bank transfers because I think banks charge such high fees for the service.


Thanks again, Deborah

Shanna

Just an FYI: I'm living in Germany now and it's pretty standard to pay by transfer - rent, utilities, real estate agent, car purchase. It's actually pretty easy with the bank routing number and your account number. I don't know if this would be considered a "wire transfer" in the US. Moving money between countries used to be a big deal so they charged a lot. Now it's ordinary but they still charge a lot.

DeborahAnn

Just an update and information that might be helpful to other "speedsters" in Germany. Thanks to the internet we were able to eventually find the government office that could help us pay for our ticket. They were very accommodating regarding the payment even stating we could send a check from our US checking account or cash.

Avis charged us 15 euros to send us the letter about the ticket but never responded to the email I sent asking for more information or help resolving the ticket.

As always, the help received at Fodors is "priceless" Thanks, Deborah

machomania

I had visited Germany in June this year and I had rented out a car from Avis during my stay. The rental company recently charged my credit card for 15 Euros and 30 Euros for providing my information to the Traffic Authorities in Germany for 2 separate speeding violations committed the same day at 2 different places. I was driving from Munich to Paderborn.

So far I've only received one letter from the traffic authorities with a fine of 120 Euros + Misc fee of 23.50 = 143.50 euros. The letter mentioned that the offence was for speeding at 119 kmph in a 80 kmph zone off-city limits.

I don't know what the other offence/fine might be.

Now my concern is: Can I ignore these tickets? Its very unlikely me visiting Germany again. If I can't ignore, does the current system allow me to make payments easily online? Paying through banks is a nightmare!

Any sound advice is really appreciated!

DeborahAnn

Macho, we used the regional office listed on the speeding notification that we received as well as "sleuthing" online to find a person who got us to the proper department to pay our fine. We were able to send cash so could avoid any bank charges. Paying by credit card never was an option given to us. I'm not sure what problems you might encounter if you don't pay the fine. You may not be going back to Germany but I wonder if Avis would flag a record of an outstanding fine. Good luck. Deborah