You can travel far faster and further in France and experience the delights of the open road. Distances that would be an ordeal in the UK seem undemanding on the huge network of French motorways or using the alternative rural routes with long stretches of straight roads. 

 

However, it is all too easy to get carried away and ignore the French speed limits, especially as the local drivers appear to have little respect for them. That could prove an expensive misjudgement under a new tariff of on-the-spot fines which will be much more rigorously applied to visiting motorists that it ever was in the past.

 

Superficially it would appear that fines have actually been reduced, for the previous minimum penalty, 137 Euros, is now 90 Euros (about £60). That sum however applies only to the smallest infraction above the limit and rises steeply. Motorists who exceed the limits (see box) by more than 25% are also seriously at risk of being arrested and their vehicles impounded.

 

The French police do not readily accept travellers cheques, credit cards or non-Euro currency as payment. If you do not have sufficient Euro notes to meet a fine, expect to be escorted to the nearest cash dispenser, which may very well be in the opposite direction to where you want to go.

 

Although speed cameras have still to be introduced in France, sophisticated radar traps are multiplying. Digital technology enables the police to transmit the registration numbers of offending vehicles to their colleagues at the ports, so drivers who believe they have escaped punishment for speeding can get an unpleasant surprise while queuing for their ferry home. Incidentally, radar detection devices are illegal in France and their use attracts an automatic driving ban of between one and three years, starting immediately.

 

Another on-the-spot fine that features in the new tariff is 45 Euros for failing to produce the correct documents. Although the old UK driving licence without a picture remains legal in France, producing it tends to provoke a much more searching examination of vehicle documentation, so it is best replaced. The French police are not easily persuaded that a standard UK insurance certificate gives minimum cover within the European Union (though it does) and it is still advisable to take the equivalent of the old ‘Green Card’ that specifically refers to comprehensive cover on the Continent. It is also unwise to travel without the original vehicle registration document, or a copy if the vehicle belongs to a third party, together with a letter from the owner authorizing your use of the car.

 

There is a similar penalty for failing to display a GB plate or to carry a warning triangle and a replacement set of vehicle light bulbs. A particular unfortunate British motorist last summer who dutifully made use of one of his replacements, was fined for having an incomplete set of bulbs because he had thrown the failed bulb away!

 

Expect random checks in 2005 near the French ports on headlight deflector kits. By then any shortcomings in the direction of headlight beams will be more obvious because under an impending change in French law, it is likely to become compulsory outside urban areas to drive with dipped headlights throughout the day.