IMDonehere

OK then, we know in which column Cath belongs.

almcd

I wish the police here in Ontario would be as strict. If you are doing 110 km/ hr(68 mph) in a 100 km/ hr zone, you are holding traffic up. The same is true in the cities. With unmarked cars , the police could pay a large part of their budget in a year!

Cathinjoetown

I may be many things but have never been accused of being a hypocrite.

IF you had read my response to the OP you would have noted that I admitted I'd been caught speeding in France, twice actually.

kerouac

I have had two speeding tickets as well in France and have paid them dutifully because I deserved them. The first one was on the A4 autoroute, still in the suburbs of Paris, in a construction zone. The speed limit had been reduced from 110 to 90 due to the construction, but I paid no attention because it was very early in the day with no traffic. I was wrong.

The second time was somewhere in the city of Nancy. I am well aware that the maximum speed limit in any city street is 50 but I was going much too fast (probably because the streets were empty, a situation that some people seem to take as an authorization to speed). This ticket cost me twice as much as on the autoroute, which is perfectly normal since you have a much greater chance of killing pedestrians.

IMDonehere

My reply was not about speeding it is about cheating on other aspects of life and some how ignoring that but being self-righteous about minimal speeding.

I hope the world is more forgiving and charitable to this group for a mistake, then they are to others.

nytraveler

Sorry - it's perfectly possible to follow the rules without being a saint. Nor am I a hypocrite.

Yes, I was caught speeding once - in a speed trap - and paid the fine - no excuses. And yes, I have driven too fast on other occasions (but not dangerously) - and not been caught. That doesn't make me a hypocrite - that would be the whining and whinging - o woe is me, why should I pay, they're after all the tourists - nonsense - instead of behaving like an adult and just paying.

I'm just not a cheat. And I would bet there are a lot of other people here who are not cheats.

If this is all you see around you perhaps you need new friends.

kerouac

The worst speed trap I ever experienced was in East Germany. I went to Berlin with a friend a couple weeks after the Berlin Wall "fell," because we absolutely had to do it, but East Germany still very much existed for a little while with its own rules of the road.

Leaving Berlin, we took one of the old autobahns dating back to the 3rd Reich, and the speed limit was something like 110 but every now and then for absolutely no discernible reason, it would drop to 80. And of course, it was in one of those sections that I got stopped, along with a Swedish car, an Italian car and a Swiss car, since they collected us in groups. I was obliged to pay 100 <b>West</b> German marks on the spot or get taken to the police station. I immediately paid because I was not about to argue with East German police, and anyway I did not contest at all the fact that I had not followed the speed limit. This lesson has served me in later years, no matter country I am driving in.

IMDonehere

I am glad that all the people never stole, cheated, or did anything that is considered illegal. And if they did something illegal, would appear at the proper agency and plead for the most severe punishment. It is a most remarkable group in that regard.

maitaitom

If I'm doing substantial driving anywhere in Europe, I usually budget about €250 extra at the start of the trip for any sort of automobile fines (know thyself) I might receive or mishaps that could occur.

kerouac

IMD, you need to wipe that goop out of your eyes. Many of us have said that we did something illegal. We just found it normal to pay the price when we were caught.

I guess you're still on the run.

nytraveler

I think we need to be careful about the "illegal". There is a difference between an infraction (parking in the wrong place, going a little faster than the limit) and a crime (drunken driving and causing an accident). Almost everyone I now has done the former rarely (and paid the price) but not the latter.

What I don;t get is someone getting so exorcised over a quite small speeding ticket.