Don’t forget your breath-test kit: British drivers on French roads must carry equipment or risk being fined

[Michael Browne]

British tourists driving to France will have to remember to pack some extra kit this summer.

 

A new law came into force yesterday requiring drivers and motorcyclists to carry two breathalysers in their vehicles - or risk being fined.

 

The French government believes that the rule will reduce the number of drink-driving deaths on its roads by 500 each year by encouraging motorists to check their own alcohol levels before setting off.

 

But critics of the move have cast doubts on the accuracy of the kits in being able to tell if a driver is over the limit. Others said it is simply another attempt to make money out of foreign drivers.

 

Drivers and motorcyclists, including foreign visitors, will now face an on-the-spot fine of £9 unless they travel with two single-use breathalysers.

Mopeds are excluded from the new regulations, which will be enforced from November 1 following a four-month grace period, partly due to a shortage of the tests.

 

Tens of millions will be needed.

 

French police have warned that they will be carrying out random checks on drivers bringing their cars across on ferries or through the Channel Tunnel.

 

Tens of millions of breathalyser kits will be needed under the new rules, but caught without one and you will see an on the spot fine of £9

 

The French government has approved two breathalyser kits – a cheap blow-in-the-bag tester that costs £3 and digital versions that cost more than £100.

 

They will be available at ferry and tunnel terminals for crossings to France, so that motorists can judge whether they are safe to drive after drinking.

 

The French drink-driving limit is 50mg of alcohol in 100ml of blood - substantially less than the UK limit of 80mg. Police will continue to use their own breathalysers to carry out any roadside tests.

 

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2167476/Don-t-forget-breath-test-kit-British-drivers-French-roads-carry-equipment-risk-fined.html#ixzz1zmTMVGm5

 

[reallymadwoman]

It's not absolutely clear from that report but the approved tests are the only ones the French police will accept, so there's no point buying one in the UK.

 

The French have also recently introduced a law banning any equipment which shows the location of speed cameras, even fixed ones, so you're supposed to turn that feature off if your Sat Nav has it.

 

Can't find how to do it on ours. You can turn the warning sound off, but that's all, so we'll just have to keep our fingers crossed.

[keefyboy]

reallymadwoman, if you go to your SatNav makers site you will find that they normally have a Full instruction manual available and you can find out how to disable it on there.

 

My concern is reading what they say "has prohibited drivers from carrying any device capable of detecting speed cameras." well surely this must mean SatNavs aswell wether the facility is on or off.......

[raydetinu]

so if you have a breath test kit and you actually use it, what then! do you have to carry lots of them?

Sorry officer but used it so I can drive at 2 in the morning and have not got another?

if they accept that then just carry a used one all the time?

[afcwben]

and would your smart phone be considered as a device that can spot speed cameras?

[Starfury]

To quote the e-mail from CAG...

 

"Since January, French law has prohibited drivers from carrying any device capable of 'detecting' speed cameras. If you haven't disabled camera alerts you can be fined at the roadside..."

 

The important word here is 'detecting', if this is true, I don't think many Sat Navs or smart phones are capable of 'detecting' cameras, unlike 'road safety' equipment such as Road Angel which can detect mobile cameras alongside the inboard GPS system which warns of fixed camera sites by their map location.

 

Please could someone verify the wording?

[dezza69]

I have read that the police do not have the right to inspect the satnav if you refuse to hand it to them and cannot take it for themselves. This point might be worth clarifying.

[keefyboy]

Is that the law in this country or over in France....? when they got a gun by their sides they can inspect anything they want to inspect in my car...

I should imagine that if they suspect you of having a device like a SatNav with a Speed Camera App on it, then they have the right to inspect it to ensure it is switched off.

[dezza69]

Keefyboy the conversation is about France and French law. The comment posted was to point out that there has been a valid legal point raised in the press about the police not being allowed by law to insist on a physical inspection if the driver refuses to hand it over and whether any French legal trained person knew if that is true or if anyone knows the true answer rather than a guess or something they might suspect to be true which wont help anyone. Other comments rightly point out that a satnav is not a detection device like a radar detection device is, a satnav uses published, public data to advise, not search and detect mobile cameras. Even the facility to show where mobile cameras operate is based on published data so it is not detecting devices.

[keefyboy]

I thank you for correcting me, I have tried to read the Daily Mail article in post 1 but all I get is the headlines....... you stated that the police do not have any right to demand your device, where has that info come from, as from my experience of working for the police in UK, they do have the right and I am given to understand that ANY Country that they believe you maybe breaking their laws, has the right to inspect it wether you object or not.

 

I will also correct you about SatNavs not being able to detect portable speed devices, I have a Garmin Satnav and I purchased a 3rd party App which when programmed into it ( I purchased this app after buying my SatNav and now I dont go abroad anymore it seemed a little stupid renewing the price for the App) which Did detect portable as well fixed cameras. My SatNav is loaded with full UK & European details which i used in europe several times,

 

If I go down to to see my family, even now, my SatNav often gives me a warning that there is a speed camera or device ahead, normally within 800M and when you look for it, it is often the police siting up on a bridge with a speed gun.

 

I am also given to understand that you can BUY a SatNav with this facility already programmed into it, for obvious reasons it is not highly publicised because of the legality of using that facility on a SatNav which it is already working being in use, therefore .

You can legally buy detection equipment, but it is illegal to use it......

 

But at least we know now that in France you do have to have a Breatherlizer Kit and must not use speed detection devices as it is now Illegal to use them in that country. I wonder now how many other EU countries will follow Frances example in requiring these items. My views on breatherlizers are if you made it "Totally unacceptable " to drinking and driving then you would not need these laws.

[dezza69]

Keefyboy, neither your police experience nor my police experience qualifies us to speculate on French law and I am certain you can understand that every country has varying levels of what an officer can or cant do which we could not possibly claim to be experienced in. The Daily Mail article stated that it believed that the French Traffic police do not have the right to inspect equipment inside the car if you refuse to let them. I wanted to clarify if that was right or not. This is under their traffic law which is different to other laws which could possibly be applied. For example I suspect that all EU forces will have the right to pull your car into a thousand pieces if they suspect any risk of terrorism, however we are talking about French traffic law and French traffic police here aren't we? Concerning satnav capabilities, downloading an app to an ordinary satnav is not going to miraculously turn your map device into a radar detector. Only very specific hardware does that, and your ordinary Garmin satnav is unlikely to be hiding a transmission/receiver facility inside it. There are dual purpose units out there where detection hardware is built in, and the French have decided that even databased satnavs that tell you where they have cameras is not allowed in their country but your own app is going to be nothing more than an up-datable satellite gps based list of 1) Where the fixed locations of cameras are on public records 2) Where it has been recorded on public records that mobile speed cameras are likely to be placed. The satnav just tells you as you get close to a co-ordinate that there is a fixed device there or you are approaching an area publicly listed as having mobile units operating sometimes. It's not real-time searching physically for cameras, just data associated with a location. It does not "detect" the portable devices, it tells you where they are likely to be as a location on a map. Your italics illustrate my point, often they will be there but not always and your device will tell you locations where they may be but doesn't search and home in on the camera itself. Anyway, lets get back to the original purpose of the post, does anyone know if under French Law the French Traffic Police Officer who pulls you over for a perceived Traffic Offense actually does or does not have a right to demand to inspect the equipment as the Mail article implies?

[keefyboy]

As I said I DID have the equipment that went with the satnav and that was what deteded it using the satnav to display it.

 

Finally I don't think that this is the place to discuss this.

I will await and see with interest hopefully what the result of this thread is.