French woman gets 35 fines, but no fine “because she doesn’t know what route control is” | Abroad

If you drive too fast, you risk a deduction of points in France and a hefty fine. In recent years, many speeding offenders are automatically fined via section checks. These automatically send fines after infrared cameras, speed detectors and image processing calculate how fast cars drive between two points on the road. The first section checks of this type were put into use on French roads in 2012.

But it is clear that some drivers are still unaware of how these radars work. This was the case, for example, with a young lady who used the RN57, near Besançon, to go to work every day from October 2020 to March 2021. According to the French Motor1, the 22-year-old driver committed no fewer than 35 speeding violations on this road, worth a total of 2600 euros.

The problem was that the first fines only trickled in to her a few months after the first violation. Once aware of her speeding violations, the young woman decided to take up the fight with her father’s support. In court, she explained that she did not know how the trajectory control works. When she received her first official report, she said she immediately stopped speeding.

And despite the fact that “everyone is expected to know the law,” the court was extremely lenient. So lenient in fact that she did not have to pay the fine of 2600 euros and can keep all the points on her driver’s license. Although no time limit is provided for in the law, the court acknowledges that the fines were not sent within a reasonable time.