Bongo Fury

I was toddling along doing 90kmph on a 110 road which opened out into 2 lanes. The car behind me (who just happened to be French) immediately overtook me and accelorated away. Less than 400 metres up the road a Gendarme literally jumped out into the road straight after the French car shot past them and pulled me over.
After checking all my documents and lights, breathalyzer, reflective jacket, tyres etc etc which was all fully compliant he had the audacity of accusing me of doing 118kmph.
I asked him to show me proof, he said and I quote " In France we do not have to show you proof, we caught you on our radar" When I asked him why he chose to leave the French driver go who was quite obviously doing in excess of 130 he said "He was under the limit"
Fortunately for me my wife stepped in to cool me down as I had a red mist come over and they knew they were pushing the right buttons. So without proof i guess it is going to be my word against theirs and I pretty much know my appeal is doomed to failure.....

So to go home I am rigging up a dashboard camera which I hope will support should I get pulled over on the way home !!
As you can probably tell I am off the scale angry, and of course 90euros short to start my holiday.

Oh yeah I forgot to mention I should have been travelling over on thursday night but our kids passports did not arrive so we were delayed for a day, then the ferry we wanted to get on was full so we had to get on the one 2hrs later which was double the price.
Not the start I wanted for my "HarryBongos" first venture into europe. Suddenly all the hassles of travelling easy jet do not seem sooo bad !!!!

Au-revoir for now fellow bongoers, I will no doubt update this post "Should my appeal be succesful" which I very much doubt or if I get pulled again on the way home !!!!!

I've just got back from limoges, where abouts are you heading for ?

Bogmonster40 wrote: then the ferry we wanted to get on was full so we had to get on the one 2hrs later which was double the price.

Did you wait until getting to the port before booking a crossing?

scanner wrote:

Bogmonster40 wrote: then the ferry we wanted to get on was full so we had to get on the one 2hrs later which was double the price.

Did you wait until getting to the port before booking a crossing?

Maybe he went as "reserve". There are usually a few no-shows. Ferry companies don't want you to know this as they would prefer everyone booked and paid months in advance.

Velocette wrote:

scanner wrote:

Bogmonster40 wrote: then the ferry we wanted to get on was full so we had to get on the one 2hrs later which was double the price.

Did you wait until getting to the port before booking a crossing?

Maybe he went as "reserve". There are usually a few no-shows. Ferry companies don't want you to know this as they would prefer everyone booked and paid months in advance.

So how do you book it then?

and more to the point would it get me a return for less than the £48.00 (for a 7m motorhome) I paid booking in advance?

Hi guys checking in every now and then:

I was booking it online when the 2.00am ferry dissapeared off the system, so I rang DFDS and they told me there was no availability for the ferry as it was full. As it was our 1st time we did not leave at the original time as we did not want to be hanging around the port - something to bear in mind for the future I guess.

We were heading to Divonne-les-bains which is where we are currently.

Right heading back out to the afternoon sun - which is absolutely cooking at the mo.......

So how do you book it then?

and more to the point would it get me a return for less than the £48.00 (for a 7m motorhome) I paid booking in advance?[/quote][/quote]

It was a long, long time ago I did it via Sealink. My son was ill on the last day and we had to leave the campsite in SW France 10 hours late so we rang Sealink and they said no later Western crossings and booked us one from Calais. This was a lot further to drive from where we were (Aquitane). We realised we wouldn't make it so rang again and rebooked. We were pulling a trailer, it was August so spaces were supposedly hard to find. To cut a long story short we arrived in Calais having run out of petrol by the Canadian Cemetry and missed yet another boat but the loaders just waved us on the next one without checking anything. Obviously you have more chance of this happening on the shorter routes. I doubt you'd get a refund if it were a cheaper crossing and you would have to pay an admin fee too..

What I did was turn up and What you see is what you get, I don't think you can prebook it. If I'd known the option was available at the time it would have made the journey a lot less stressful as we were constantly battling against time and didn't need to be.

With Norfolk Line, you could pay £10 on the day & change to an earlier sailing. Not sure how it works if you miss the one you are booked to go on.

I did ask if they did flexi tickets in case I decided to stay for a few days more ( being retired so no work worries) does make things a lot easier for us mind....But I was told if we cant make the booked ferry just phone ahead and they will sort out an alternate sailing for a small fee.
What they deem as a small fee remains to be seen mind

At one time I was very keen on France. I was good at French, loved visiting the place, had friends there and would not tolerate a bad word about the country.

Over the years I heard an increasing number of stories about their police apparently going out of their way to target British motorists.

Many incidents I heard about took place in an era when I know for a fact that British police would go out of their way to assist French car and lorry drivers who had done something silly on unfamiliar roads, often bringing a French speaker to the scene from quite a distance. Contrast that with stories of French police issuing on the spot fines without any attempt to disguise the coincidence that the chosen amount had to be divisible by the number comprising the crew.

At the same time it appeared that the French government would be as obtuse as possible over most issues which affected our two countries jointly, even allowing for the institutional xenophobia of the British press.

As a result I developed an attitude towards French police and, consequently, France which could be roughly translated as 'S*d you then".

It is many years since I have visited France, not since the advent of the Euro, in fact.

I feel the same way about the USA (and their dollars) having heard about how you are likely to get treated on arrival there. Fortunately I have some favourite places to spend time in elsewhere.

Does the French government know how many people here would rather holiday elsewhere or would not drive there because of having to run the joint gauntlet of police and thieves? Do they care? I doubt it.

Let's hope that on the spot fines without hard evidence of the infraction never become acceptable here.

I think you acted with considerable self restraint.


Frank

Diplomat wrote: Over the years I heard an increasing number of stories about their police apparently going out of their way to target British motorists.

I wouldn't mind betting that French motorists hear the same about British police
Sadly, there are bad apples in every basket and, considering the millions of British driving in France each year, the number of incidences is very low - still bl***y annoying when it happens to you though

Hi
I'd say that i've only ever come across good treatment by the French police....in fact a couple of times they've gone the extra mile to help out!...same here..the Police have a bad name here, but we've experienced plenty of good ones....sure they pick on foreigners....why should foreigners getaway with bending the rules...and we know one Angloscroat that gave our local bobby a mouthful...such behaviour taints life for everyone!
In the case of a copper being a bit iffy, we never know what they've just had to deal with...perhaps an Angloscroat?...I was let off a definite speeding ticket , as the copper concerned knew we always helped the local bobby if he needed a lift, but the cop's partner had a bit of a face like thunder...if he was the boss of the 2 , we might have been less lucky....On getting back into the car, our Bulgarian pal said that the miserable-looking one had lost his daughter when a speeding drunk ran her over 2 days previous....so....we never know!...made me feel a bit small!
Cheers
Helen

Many years ago we were pulled over by French police just after crossing from Spain into France.
They virtually emptied our van onto the equivalent of the hard shoulder, presumably looking for something illegal (we were in a self converted transit and we looked slighlty 'new-age' ).
They found nothing; then they started talking about pulling off the carpets stuck to the inside trims. It must have seemed like too much hassle as they gave up after an hour and drove off leaving us with the contents of the van spread over the hard shoulder!

UK customs stopped us in a Tranny many years ago, coming back through Southampton from Spain..we were a band, on the road..

all amps and cabs opened up , van jacked up, wheels off van, tyres off wheels.

Nothing found, the b******s just walked away leaving us on the quayside with the gear and the van in bits, due to do a gig in Newcastle that night..

It's not just the Frogs that can give you a hard time if you don't 'look right'.

Derek

Quite a few years ago I took a very nice S.E. Asian girlfriend to Jersey to meet my mother.

On the way back we obviously fitted a profile and were waved over to the customs shed and a rummage search of our baggage and my car began. A week or so earlier I had been sorting radio components into small resealable plastic bags and had a quantity of unused bags in a tool box and their faces lit up on discovering them.

Before they got to the dismantling stage they found a film container in my toiletry bag containing white powder. They asked me what it was and I told them. They didn't believe me and took it awy to analyse. As they were pretty sure they had me nabbed big time they eased off on the car search. Eventually they came back and said "You were correct, it is bicarbonate of soda". I was using it to clean my teeth long before most people had ever heard of Arm and Hammer.

I made a mental note that if ever they took away anything to analyse in future, I would ask them to leave some of it behind in the sight of me and an independent witness. I trusted them that time because I knew the truth and had nothing to hide but what if they had been hell bent on getting a result? They could have bluffed it and carried on with all sorts of searches and I might well have found that someone had turned my house upside down in a bogus burglary before I even got back home. I bet their people in London spirited away my dustbins for a couple of weeks just in case they had got it wrong in Weymouth.


Frank