Driving in Europe

Pride of Dover a couple of weeks ago
I am careful of French police. I used the BMW Z8’s splendidly straightforward cruise control on the recent Le Mans Classic trip. Went Dover-Calais by P&O and although this time I never saw any, I’ve been caught too often, along with other British tourists, by Autoroute radar traps. They must make millions of Euros in tolls and fines. I wish somebody would do a survey of how much, like the one undertaken by the German online travel-agency ab-in-den-urlaub.de .

This showed that Germans drivers suffered 515 874 speeding tickets from Switzerland, Holland, Austria, Belgium and Italy alone, while Germany rarely fines foreign motorists. Around 5 million German cars are taken on European holidays each year. There are many reasons for the fines – sometimes tourists can't read the Italian-language sign for “Quiet Street”, hidden in the parking area next to the Leaning Tower of Pisa. This means €194.50 if you are not prepared to pay without appealing.

The agency ab-in-den-urlaub.de has calculated that 515,874 parking tickets with a value of €53.6 million were sent to German drivers during 2009 alone. That means in 10 years, European countries have cashed in €520 million from German drivers abroad.

Around half the total €25.5 million is collected in Switzerland. Swiss police accompany drivers to the next bank to demand money on the spot. Second highest earner is the Netherlands. In 2009 192,503 fines were sent to Germans with a total value of €19.2 million.

Transport lawyer Alexander Koden told the agency, “It is particularly difficult to prove whether a foreign traffic offence is really justified.” It can take over a year before a payment demand arrives. Not only that: The Italians accept only appeals which are written in Italian. English, German and French are accepted as official languages within the EU, however that still does not mean that one is allowed to write to an Italian police department in English or German.

Once more, says the agency, “The EU has shown its neither-here-nor-there mentality. Traffic signs in Sweden, Greece and Italy may only be produced in the local language. As unity of the signage is not provided, many tourists fall into the traffic fines trap simply as a result of misunderstandings.”
Joanna was driving the BMW at 115mph; OK in Germany, not elsewhere

Classics

Imposters every one. None had a proper ticket for the air-conditioned press tribune
Le Mans Classic. More like a motor racing Glastonbury than Garden Party Goodwood. The press service was well-meaning rather than effective. Took a long time to get accreditation because they wanted professional insurance of some sort and when we got to the Circuit de la Sarthe they had very nice well-mannered gels, very polite, very French, very pretty and totally unhelpful. It was very hot, 40 degrees, and it would have been nice if my number one daughter had been given some sort of paddock pass so she could carry my camera bag. At my age you need somebody to do that, but no it was impossible. What about a car pass to get us around on the infield? No that was impossible too.

In the event it scarcely mattered. Forty years of blagging into places where officials don’t want you to go, got us pretty well everywhere we wanted. It helped having BMW’s Z8, which meant we could park it at the BMW Classic exhibition tent. It also helped that number one daughter has big eyes, which distracted officials sufficiently when I mumbled (in Englishy French – it might as well have been Gaelic) that mamselle was with me and waved my enamel badge on a string.

Camped at Maison Blanche, well I say camped, number one son Craig had brought a camper van, which was a help although the queues at the shower block and half a dozen loos for a very large car park, mostly full of Brits, was more Pop Festival than Glorious Goodwood.

I always liked Le Mans. It was one place I thought I’d go back to as a spectator when I stopped covering Le Vingt Quatres Heures. I did this mostly between 1965 and 1985 and even went to the French Grand Prix (2 July 1967, Bugatti Circuit, Le Mans if you are interested) to see Jack Brabham and Denny Hulme win in Brabham Repcos from Jackie Stewart in a V8 BRM and Jo Siffert in a V12 Cooper Maserati. The caravan site looked like a loop of the Bugatti circuit, which was never used for a French Grand Prix again although Le Mans likes to think of itself as the birthplace of French motor racing. OK the first grand prix ever took place there in 1906 but it really is now a bit of a circus that takes itself much too seriously.

Ah well. The Le Mans Classic was fine really, with lots of swarthy rich people in Ferraris driving rather badly and masses of worthy clubs from the UK, Triumphs, MGs, Jaguars all having a wonderful time. The enthusiasm people show for classic cars is quite touching. They’ll chat uninhibitedly in the queue for the loo about how they fell in love with their first TR2 in 1955 and isn’t it nice the way you can drive along with your arm overhanging the door. Nostalgia is exactly how it used to be. Any TR2 driver will tell you to get the revs at two-five for the little crackle noise in the exhaust.