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France: Further Intolerance Towards Speeding-Money Please |
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File under France
Author: Mike Werner
Location: Normandy, France
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The French authorities are known, at least in the last few years, to have a very low threshold for speeders. According to government spokespersons. this is because of high traffic mortality rates, but everyone knows what the government doesn't want to say; it's all about your money - how to get it! Maybe years ago it was about saving lives, but then they realized the enormous amount of money speed radars can generate.
On the 23rd of June, the official French government publication stated that the tolerance for speeding, i.e., the difference between the official speed limit and the speed you were riding, will be decreased.
For fixed speed radars, for speeds below 100 kph, the tolerance has gone from 5 to 3 kph, for speeds above 100 kph, it went from 5 to 3%. Mobile radars, notoriously unreliable, went from 10 to 7 kph for speeds below 100 kph, and 10% to 7% for speeds above 100 kph.
What this means?
If you are riding your motorcycle (or car) in town, with a speed limit of 50 kph, before you could ride at 55 kph, now you'll get a ticket at 53!
Just think about it!!! How many people can tell the difference between 50 and 53 kph? It's already difficult between 50 and 55 kph, but it's more feasible.
What you'll end up doing is staring at your speed indicators, ignoring traffic in front of you.
Result: more accidents or more speeding tickets!
Also, many vehicles do not have graduated speedometers. Instead they show the speeds in 10 kph increments with a small line for the 5 increments. So often it's impossible to really see the exact speed of your motorcycle (or car). On top of this, speeds are not 100% accurate. Granted, most speedometers show higher than real speeds, so now you need to juggle. Not very safe on a motorcycle.
Why this intolerance?
Dumb question! France is spending billions of Euros trying to relaunch its economy while standing by electoral promises of not raising taxes. So the only way is make it impossible for drivers to escape speeding fines, increasing the flow of money back to the government. More and more Police officers are taken off crime fighting, and put in to revenue generating jobs.
Bad... very bad...
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