Safe Speed Forums

Mad Doc, Ern and self have posted up the rules and links before.

However, spurred by Dixie's post in the "News" forum and this weeks's copy of Auto Express.. let's have a little quiz

After all - per Auto Express - 80% of Brits break EU laws abroad...

Ignorance no excuse as they hand out a £340 on- the spot fine because you did not know what you are supposed to have in the sallon and boot of your car

Even more confusing - no harmonisation. If you wear glasses - Spain and the psissy Swissy insist you have a spare pair in the car "just in case" However - the French are now the strictest of all now.

SO to the QUIZ?

1. In which country is a reflective vest not yet law? (UK is not the answer!)

2. Where should this reflective vest be kept?

a) saloon
b) boot

3. What is the letter of this law regarding the wearing of one of these vests?

a) hotel car park
b) as soon as you step out of the car onto roadway
c) only on motorway
d) only if you break down

4. What spares MUST be in your kit? (all EU countries - not UK)

a) fan belt
b) bulbs
c) oil can
d) water can
e) car keys

5. Do you really need those headlight adapters? Explain your anwer!

6. Under what circumstance could you get away with not displaying a GB sticker on your car?

7. List the documents you should have on your person when drivng on the continent and why would they not accept an old UK paper licence?

8. What are the drink drive limits? Are they the same as the UK?

9. What are the speed limits in France.

10. What might make someone like me sniff around your car? There is a clue given the national sport

11, What else do the Germans, Austrians and Swiss insist you carry in your car - other than spare wotsits?

Feel free to hit the quote button to answer bits and bobs - or google for the answers and keep for reference

For discussion purposes as well - should UK impose some of these rules?

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Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon - but driving with a smile and a COAST calm mind.

Without Googling anything and just using the brains of 3 drivers (me and 2 younguns) in the room with me at the moment we have come up with the following answers

1. Germany or France
2. a
3. d
4. b
5. yes because it is law on the continent to have yellow lights
6. if you hired a car in that country
7. licence (paper not acceptable as it has no photo for ID), insurance proving that you are covered for driving in Europe, MOT certificate, birth certificate?
8. limit is higher than in the UK
9. 50 mph
10. if anything suggests you're a football hooligan - flags etc
11. a driver?

Re: the discussion of whether the UK should have some of these laws - please not because I haven't a clue with these questions except for nos. 4 & 5

5) headlight adapters have nothing to do with yellow lights, they change the beam pattern of your lights so you don't blind oncoming traffic. Yellow lights aren't required (were they ever?) Headlight adapters are needed unless you have xenon lights which come with a handy switch to change the beam angle.

6) if you have an eu plate

8) the UK has a stupidly high limit. Everywhere else is lower.

9) yes, make sure you drive at 50mph everywhere in France, they will love you for it.
Otherwise (for cars) it's 50km/h in towns, 90km/h out of them, 110km/h on the motorways unless it's a toll road then it's 130. Just to be helpful, the limit's lower in the wet.


11) first aid kit or fire extinguisher? Or both??


French motorway limits would be nice to have (officially) here. Having their dui limit (and enforcing it) probably wouldn't be a bad thing either.

1- Italy
2 Saloon
3 Only when you break down
4 Bulbs
5-
7-Photo card pert of the Drivng licence
8-
9-
11- First aid kit and warning triangle

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11. 5 litres of the relevant fuel for your car, this was for autobahns in Germany, also Authorised First aid kit, Fire Estinguisher and Warning triangle

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Semper in excreta, nur quantitat variat.

oh dear, looks like I failed miserably there. All but one correct answer came from the younguns. Just as well I have no intention of driving anywhere other than the UK eh?

You are smuggling Vodka/Gin from a non-EU country in your screenwash bottle.

Um, er, not that I've ever done that before the abolishon of duty free across EU countries.

It has never been a requirement to have yellow lights anywhere except France. In the old days, Brits used to paint their headlights yellow, but this requirement was routinely ignored by visitors from other European countries. Nowadays, not even the French have this requirement.

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Brian

I'm not going to do very well at this, since I've never driven on the continent, have no intention of doing so in the near future, and would look up a guide to this sort of thing before doing so.

1. In which country is a reflective vest not yet law? (UK is not the answer!)

Don't know, but since it is law in most of them (most likely including francy and holland, the main ferry ports) you may as well have one.

2. Where should this reflective vest be kept?

Don't know, but if you accept that wearing one before venturing out onto the road is a good plan, then keeping it in the boot is kind of dumb unless you can reach the boot from inside the car.

3. What is the letter of this law regarding the wearing of one of these vests?

no idea.

4. What spares MUST be in your kit? (all EU countries - not UK)

I'm going to go with bulbs since they're the only one that's a safety issue for other people.

5. Do you really need those headlight adapters? Explain your anwer!

Apparently Xenons are switchable, though I know for a fact the ones on my Legacy aren't. Neither are the aftermarket ones. I guess if you have the switch then you don't need the adaptors. Also some people like to change their entire headlight unit for european ones whilst on the ferry!

6. Under what circumstance could you get away with not displaying a GB sticker on your car?

If you have a numberplate with GB and the euro star thing.
If you haven't bothered to register your car with the DVLA since you immigrated here.
Excludes Switzerland.

7. List the documents you should have on your person when drivng on the continent and why would they not accept an old UK paper licence?

No idea, but I'm guessing driving licence would be one of them. Insurance, MOT and logbook are quite likely too.

8. What are the drink drive limits? Are they the same as the UK?

Dont know, don't care. I wont drive if I've had any alcohol at all, same as I do at home.

9. What are the speed limits in France.

Don't know. If the EU get their way though, probably 90kmh!

10. What might make someone like me sniff around your car? There is a clue given the national sport

If it's France, pretty much any sign that you're from England, double so if it's a performance car at which point they'll be looking for radar detectors and the like. Given your clue, I'm going to go with chav flags and scarves streaming from the windows etc.

11, What else do the Germans, Austrians and Swiss insist you carry in your car - other than spare wotsits?

If it's the Swiss, probably a gun or something!

Why is that when we get the book thrown at us by police on the continent but there is very little done to enforce traffic law on EU nationals driving in this country?

It's not only toll roads where it is 130 except when wet - any recently renovated motorway in Normandy and Brittany usually has a 130 limit.

In addition, some towns and villages have 30 KPH limits, clearly signed, and usually obviously a sensible precaution. Often the road is paved in some way, and clearly different to the 50 kph limits on either side.
Oh and names of villages and towns as you enter them denote the limit with an appropriatlyy coloured border, and a red diagonal stripe lets you know you are leaving the town.
However, in some places, two name boards might be back to back - in which case the limit remains the same.

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Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

The young lady and I just got back from a 2,000 mile drive to Tuscany and back.

I thought I'd checked pretty carefully before we left but I've still broken some of these laws on our drive. No spare specs in Switzerland (by the way, they'll hit you up for EUR30 in road tax when you first enter the country) and my Michelin road map says the jacket is optional everywhere we went so I didn't have one of those. Must check harder next time.

Here's my answers based on what I thought before we left:

1. Italy (?)
2. Boot
3. d) - breakdown
4. Bulbs
5. I know I do; don't have Xenons.
6. EU license plate w/country code in the blue bit.
7. Photo license, V5, insurance cert.
8. 0.5 spits per bucket in most countries; zero in Russia and some other bits of Eastern Europe.
9. 50kmh in towns (red bordered sign indicates this - no need for an explicit limit sign); 90kmh on single track roads; 110 wet and 130 dry on the motorways (toll or otherwise).
10. Love to know this one! Flags & scarves as someone mentioned above?
11. Warning triangle. Enough fuel to reach a petrol station (in the tank or spare).

This isn't road tax. It is a vignette - which is for motorway tolls - if you do not use the motorways (and obviously do not enter Switzerland via motorway), then you do need this. It is valid for a year.

Just got back from France (where I continued my career as a swift driver by getting flashed by a French speed camera)

No idea. But I'd guess it's probably Germany?


I'd assume a), though mine was in b every time it slipped off the parcel shelf, whoops.


b) seems sensible, so I suppose it isn't that...


Bulbs! I know this one. And I even took a set...


Not sure how much good they did - I'm going to try the Stanley knife and black insulting tape solution next time...


Ooh! me! I know this one. It's if your number plate already has the country identification on it. So I stuck a "Cymru" sticker on my car instead.


You need a copy of your insurance certificate with "this is an insurance certificate" (or some such) in the language of your host country, vehicle registration doc (guess which I forgot!), and your driving licence.

And they won't take an old UK paper licence because it doesn't say "Driving Licence" in frog/eyetie/Deutsch/etc.


35 ml/mg alcohol/blood. I think the UK is 70 or 80, so no.


How long have you got? The most interesting thing about them is that they change when it's raining.





Pickled cabbage with Kuemmel?

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For your comfort and convenience, please stop reading now.

Ah, but the motorways in Brittany are toll roads in every sense except for the fact that they don't have tolls. It was some dodgy deal done between the national government and the Breton regional government just after the war as part of some kind of redevelopment programme.

French motorways are - 130kph is a NICE cruising speed, and I was
very impressed on the whole with the French standard of driving.

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For your comfort and convenience, please stop reading now.

1. I'll say France.
2. What's a saloon? Mine is under the driver's seat.
3. guessing b
4. b definatly.
5. No. You can make your own. Headlights shine forwards and to the side to illuminate the pavement. As the rest of Europe is on the other side of the road the 'sideways light' would dazzle drivers on the other side of the road. The "adaptors" just cover up the sideways facing light and you don't have anything to illuminate the pavement on the correct side. Or you could get headlamps made for the other side of the road if you go abroad a lot.
6. If there are no police about Or if you have a GB numberplate.
7. Driving license. Passport would be handy but I don't know if it is actually required. Old driving license is not recognised as a document in Europe maybe?
8. Don't drink, don't know, don't care.
9. 130km/h on 'motorways' or 110km/h in the rain. 50km/h in towns/viliages where you see a red bordered town sign until you get to the "end of villiage" sign. 110km/h elsewhere? Drivers who have been at it less than 2 years are limited to 110km/h on 'motorways' although when I went there I tended to cruise at about 130/140 because I didn't want to hold anyone up. In general you should drive at speed limit + 10km/h or you'll create a queue.
10. Bad mood? Looking like hooligans maybe.
11. At least one driver.


130km/h on motorways would be a start... And pulling over people who look like hooligans sounds good...

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Andrew.