Speeding ticket from France
 

See the title? We did not receive a speeding ticket in France, we received it from France. We arrived home from out trip on September 10th, 2012 and received a speeding ticket in the mail on January 2nd, 2013. The infraction is for going 120 km in a 110 km zone. And if we pay within 46 days of the infraction (September 6th) the fine is only 46 Euros!
Has anyone else gone through this? A co-worker who is originally from France told me to ignore it. But I would like to be able to return to France one day without this hanging over our heads.
PS We had an amazing trip!

Yes, lots of people have gone through it if they were speeding. There is nothing unusual about this, it takes a while to send out tickets, that's all. If I get one at home from a speed camera, I don't get it for several weeks, either, and that's where I live. And you were a foreigner and not in your own car, so it will take longer.

That's a risk you take if you decide to rent a car and speed in a foreign country, that the ticket won't reach you for some time. You certainly don't expect the French police to pay for express delivery overnight to every foreigner who breaks the traffic laws in their country.

There have been various threads on here from people who break the law and then don't want to pay the fine, you can read the various advices, they should be pretty easy to find with a search.

I would pay it, if I were you - but then, I'm perhaps overly cautious.

A friend of mine left Spain when he was 17 without paying a fine, only to be deported from the USA (where he was living and working) 10 years later when it caught up with him as it violated his visa.

Still a bit of a pain, though!

This is not an uncommon problem. There are many threads on here about this, with the usual advice being to pay up. If you broke the rules, you ought to face the consequences. I agree, though, that it's a long time between committing the infraction and receiving notification of it (i.e. you would have had no chance to pay within 46 days), so try just paying the €46 initially and then seeing what happens. It's easy enough to pay online, I'm told.

Yes, this is the way most speeding tickets are done on the main roads now. And it is also how most parking tickets are done in Paris now -- they leave no notice on the car anymore and just punch in the license plate number and automobile type in their electronic device.

Thanks everyone - I did check the other threads and the majority advise to pay. Interesting that a few were advised by their French friends to ignore it (as was I).

Expect a credit card charge from your car rental also (fee for providing your info to the police).

Well, the french friends will not be excluded from France if they don't pay the fine. I have an ex-colleague who was turned back at New York for a parking fine in LA ten years ago. Since we needed him to fly to NY regularly he lost his job.

Some people are still living in the dreamworld where such fines were amnistied at each presidential election. But Sarkozy put an end to this, and Hollande has correctly continued the same way. In the old days, nobody ever paid a fine in the last year before an election.

The fine seems very low for a speeding ticket (at least here) and it could come back to bit you - if not getting into the county - at least in renting another car.

If you don't plan on going back to Europe it's not an issue.

Expect to have your credit card charged for about the same amount. There is no connection between the one and the other, but the charge for supplying your information to the authorities is ~45-50 euros.

I agree with nytraveler that the cost of the ticket is cheap by northeastern standards, and their won't be any points involved. So that's the good news!

I disagree that you are automatically going to get a credit card charge from your rental agency "for providing info." I got a ticket sent from Italy last year and I never received any sort of CC charge from Hertz.

pay it

Sam - I paid it. The site can be accessed in English, it's really easy to use and it auto-filled the reduced rate (turns out I needed to pay within 45 days of the ticket issuance not the infraction itself). And so far no credit card charge from the rental company.

Thanks again everyone.

Why would you NOT pay it???

Hi from Vancouver,Canada. Just received speeding ticket from outside St.Malo in Britanny France, 3 weeks after it happened. Ironically, I should have been more careful,as I got 'flashed' 2 years ago in same place but heard no more about it....guess procedures have changed....unfortunately!! Having read all the comments I think I'll pay up as I go to France fairly often!!

Actually, only about a third of the cars flashed receive tickets, because the quality of the photo does not always permit identification, but I'm sure they're getting better and better.

hi Awen
On the thread about Spain, I reported your posts as possibly and ad.
Now I reported this one as an ad.

What other motive would you have to dig old posts ?
You're a speeding ticket lawyer ?
(didn't know it existed though).

I guess it is pure coincidence but when I googled
speeding ticket lawyer awen -> I got this.

Awendaw Traffic Ticket Lawyers, Attorneys and Law Firms - South Carolina

I guess I'm suspicious.

Paris. awen has certainly been posting around the driving ticket posts on this forum.
Good find via giggle!