rzwza

Hi, I need your help/advice:
We recently got back from honeymoon in Corsica (South of France). Lovely country but first time driving abroad and I was grossly unprepared for the changing and unsigned speed limits... Managed to irritate quite a lot of other motorists during our stay by driving slower than they would like but still managed to get 'flashed' on our last day at 6am on way to airport
Naturally quite embarrassed but I now have a dilemma - I received a letter from the rental company stating I was caught speeding and that they have imposed a 25 euro fine for admin which has come off my credit card, with it they also included what I assumed was a copy of the speeding ticket ("avis de contravention") but as my French is worse than basic I'm not 100% sure. Ive tried free translation sites without much sucess.

I tried visiting the site (www.antai.fr) on the ticket (?) and stumbled through (only in French) until I found online payment which was a relief as it was in English (www.amendes.gouv.fr). My problem is that it asks for an epayment number which is not on my paperwork. The site says it may be on the 1st, 2nd or 3rd page but I only have 1 page (and it looks like a photocopy).

I want to pay but dont know how.

Also the ticket was issued on the 2/10/12 (d/m/y for american viewers) but rental company didnt post this to me until 23/10/12 so does this mean I can no longer pay the reduced fine of 45 Euros? (25 Euros to take 3 weeks to forward half a letter? what a rip off...)

Should the French Police send me a 'request to pay' separately?
What if it comes after the 45 days? (which is now far too close for comfort)

Please help me!

Robert2533

Welcome to the club! It's called revenue enhancement. Since you don't have the proper information, it will be difficult making a payment.

If it were me, I'd ignore it. They are not going to extradite you for not paying a speeding ticket.

As far as the additional €25 charged by the rental agency, contest it with your credit card company. In most cases it will be credited to your account.

StCirq

The 45 euros is the correct charge for a speeding ticket (which, yes, is what you've got). You can pay it by telephone with a credit card by calling 011-33-811 10 10 10 IF you can communicate with the person on the other end of the line. The fine will go up to 68 euros after X number of days (not sure exactly how many).

Your avis de contravention should normally have 3 pages, and the epayment number should be on page 2. If you only have one page, call your car rental company and see if they have it. You do owe them the 25 euros to handle this infraction for you.

StCirq

I wouldn't ignore it. Databases these days are shared with too many entities that could mar future visits to a country.

tcreath

We received a ticket many years ago after returning home from Salzburg for driving in what apparently was a restricted area. We spent hours trying to figure out how to pay before finally giving up and throwing it away and never heard another thing about it. Then a few years after that the same thing happened again, this time from a small town near Berchtesgaden, Germany, about 3 years ago, and again we ignored it and that was that.

tcreath

I should add that our intentions were good but we couldn't translate it and never could figure out how to pay. I've been back to both Germany and Austria, and rented cars, since then without any problems.

tedgale

It is very much to your credit that you want to pay. But really, no one in France cares whether you pay or not.

The rental company is not responsible for sending you the ticket. I suspect they sent a photocopy of page 1 simply to show their admin charge was justified.

Their admin charge is for providing your name and address to the highway police -- who did not bother to send you an actual ticket.

I'd just ignore the avis de contravention -- as we have done with impunity in the past.

StCirq

That was then....

Christina

Do you have a number of the notice? (numero d'Avis de contravention, the numero is probably abbreviated to n with a superscript o.

That is probably the same as your e-payment number, try that.

tedgale

I agree with tcreath. We've been dinged with the admin charge on more than one occasion. The charge appeared on our credit card bill. We never received a ticket -- the police simply did not bother.

I suspect the rental company sent you that photocopy merely to prove their admin charge was justified, not necessarily to trigger a payment.

tedgale

Oh! My first reply did not appear when I first posted it. Hence my restating of its substance. Then suddenly my 1st post appeared - about 10 minutes late

bettyk

Over the years, we have received a couple of these letters from Avis in Germany notifying us of the "administration" charge, etc., yet have NEVER received an actual ticket from anybody.

We've returned to Germany several times since receiving these notices and no one, including Avis, has ever said anything about not paying a ticket.

My advice is to ignore it.

cigalechanta

My latehusband was stpped for speeding long ago and we had to pay on the spot. I wondered since that time if we were "taken."

Robert2533

"That was then...." And that is now!

"I wouldn't ignore it. Databases these days are shared with too many entities that could mar future visits to a country." I see you are not up on reality. Databases are not shared from country to country on issues like speeding tickets, let alone serious crime.

kybourbon

>>>I received a letter from the rental company stating I was caught speeding and that they have imposed a 25 euro fine for admin which has come off my credit card,<<<

I would be surprised if that is what it actually said. When you sign a rental car agreement, there is a clause in the fine print for a fee in a certain amount if they have to provide your info to the police. This fee (typically 25-50€ in Europe) is charged to your credit card and belongs to the rental company. The traffic ticket is sent later (sometimes by an agency the police have hired to collect tickets for them). In Italy, they have a year to get the ticket to you.

Carlux

'My latehusband was stpped for speeding long ago and we had to pay on the spot. I wondered since that time if we were "taken."'

No you were not 'taken' - if you are stopped, the police in France have the right to demand payment on the spot if you are obviously a foreigner, and there would be difficulty (as discussed above) in getting payment from you. Now of course most traffic tickets come from automatic radar machines, which 'flash' as you go by.

hetismij2

Robert2533, it is not revenue enhancement. It is a fine for breaking the law.

rzwza, you have been sent a photocopy of the fine by the hire company to prove their charge is justified. If you don't get a full copy of it from the French authorities in due course then forget about it. Good for you for trying to pay it though.

kerouac

I read that the whole European traffic fine system is going to be unified soon. At the moment, it all depends on which countries have signed agreements with each other. France has had an agreement with Germany for years, and now they finally have one with Belgium -- those two countries represent about 70% of the foreign driver traffic fines in France all by themselves.

Christina

that's the way it is in the US with some states having reciprocity agreements about traffic fines -- meaning if they have one, the points can go on your insurance but if they don't, your insurance doesn't find out. At least that's the way I understand it as I got one once in Ohio and it wasn't ever reported to my insurance in Wash DC, thank goodness. It was sort of a speed trap, although I was guilty, I admitted it. It was a big highway with little traffic on it, in my defense and I think I was clocked at only about 10 mph over the limit. I found it amusing that the police office put on the ticket that traffic was "moderate" at the time, when there was hardly any by my standards. Anyway, the thing that annoyed me was they refused to mail me a ticket nor to take a credit card, and to pay the bill in person with cash (luckily I had just enough), I had to detour off the road and go into some town to an office to pay it, the officer wouldn't take it. Really annoying in terms of the time it took.

Give me cameras and tickets in the mail you can pay online or by CC any day. IN fact, such tickets can't give you points on your license where I live, which is one nice thing about them. I've gotten a couple over the years but not many. I don't resent the cameras at all, I'd rather have it that way than by a police officer as sometimes they don't have the greatest attitude and they take up a lot of your time.

Carlux

Well,in France speeding caught by radar does make you lose points if you live here, we learned to our chagrin. Went on the autoroute to Toulouse which we have done countless times, and at the Montauban bypass, which had always been 110, it was now down to 90. Luckily we weren't going 110, but it appears, a little more than 90.