In the UK, VOSA have a book with varying fines, which are relevent to the seriousness of any alleged offence that they think you may have commited.
things like: over 10 hours driving, but less than 11. over 11 hours driving but less than 12.
less than 9 hours rest but more than 8, etc, etc.
with this system, we prety much know where we stand. and so does any visiting driver with a little bit of research.
how do we know what we are up against when we go to various EU countries?
you could get a fine in the UK for say £60, and it could be €30 or €3000 in another country for all we know.
is there any way of finding out how each member state works out the fines? or is it just pot luck?
Every country has its own way of determining the fine, usually it’s a table but e.g. Switzerland and Finland (and maybe some others) calculate fines from offender’s income (so a speeding well off businessman will pay a lot more than a lorry driver for the same offence).
Anyway, all laws and rules are on the web these days; fine tables can be found on webpages of the police or interior ministries - in official language/-s of the country…
for example:
Slovakia (“flat rate” of 165e for all 561 offences, last page of the doc): minv.sk/swift_data/source/po … 0pokut.pdf
I know in France the fine will change with the attitude of the driver, so tables don’t count for much there.
Unless Spain has had a very radical rethink on their fines they have inflated them by huge amounts over the last couple of years and they bear no relevance to the offence committed.
The fact that most can be disputed in court at a later date and be reduced by massive amounts tells me they are at the whim of the officer dishing them out at the side of the road
Of course the other problem is getting fined for offences that don’t really even exist, I remember one driver got a 4 figure fine for not carrying the original Authorisation (he had a certified copy which we all have) and another for having one laminated to protect it
One of the guys I worked with was clamped and fined 4500 euros because he couldn’t find his authourisation even when they came back in the morning and he had found it they still wouldn’t release the truck until the fine was paid.
I haven’t been to Spain since last Christmas and then it was only the one trip all winter but I had heard over the last 2 or 3 years their fines had got ridiculously high.
you can read it all or just scroll down to the annex 1 - it is not very comprehensive, but can give you a rough idea…
(I think the slovak fines mentioned in the table are those issued by Safety At Work inspection to companies rather than those payable by drivers to the police)
Anyway, you can always ask the cop to see the official tariff, each patrol should have a copy.
I was chatting to one of our Belgian driver’s last week about this sort of thing,he went on to tell me that he’d got pulled in France for a routine check and they found he’d driven 4h37m before he’d stopped for a break,held up in roadworks or something.Anyway,they nicked him for it,he paid and when he got back to the office the boss gave him the money (and a bollocking).
The next day he was driving down the A31 towards Langres,overtaking him was a Gendarmerie bus and the female officer looked up at him,so he gave her his best smile.On goes the blue light and they pull him into the services.
“I know why you’ve stopped me” say’s our intrepid driver.
“Oh!”,say’s the female officer.
“Yes,I didn’t have my seat belt on,so you are going to fine me €90”
“That’s right,but you seem to know a lot about how much you will have to pay”
Just then another officer emerges from the bus,with lots of stripes on his shoulder.
He then proceeds to go through absolutely everything with a fine tooth comb,and the €90 is gradually creeping up and up.
He then notices the 4h37m which our intrepid driver had been nicked for a few days previously.
“Ah!”,say’s our driver,“You can’t fine me for that,I’ve already been fined and paid the money”.
“Where’s the receipt”? asks many stripes.
“The boss has it,he refunded the money to me yesterday”.
“No receipt,then you must pay again” say’s stripey.
“I can get the boss to fax a copy of the receipt to you”,say’s our driver,now getting slightly worried.
“No,you will pay again!”
And so it came to pass that the €90 went up to €2000 and he had to wait until another driver arrived with the money.
There’s a moral to this story somewhere,but I’m buggered if I know what it is.
There is Keith don,t smile at the police in France and keep the original/
copy of the ticket , Which none of us think of at that time, the Kermit s are
worse than the Belgians .
KW:
There’s a moral to this story somewhere,but I’m buggered if I know what it is.
The morale of the story is: always make a printout when exceeding driving time, ASAP. You should get away with 7min even in France.
Though I appreciate that talking to a French policeman is like “teaching a horse to pray”
And the driver mentioned, or his boss, should appeal to court or at least write a nice letter to the French ministers of justice and interior about competence of their subordinates. Nobody can be prosecuted more than once for one offence, it’s called double jeopardy and is banned by laws of most (if not all) countries, also in FR, fundamental law principle…
With reference to the quote made about it being on the whim of an officer,at the road side to determine the size of the deposit for court,i have allways asked for the official book,the police should have one,and i ask to see the offence,and written by the offence is a code,and the amount that has to be paid,when you are stopped,after much huffing and blowing,you can reduce the fine,to what he/she was originaly asking for.