centurion Posted 12 September , 2012 Share Posted 12 September , 2012 I think this was to ensure that duty was paid and nothing to do with motoring. When I last bought farm produced Calvados such documentation was still issued. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Graham Smith Posted 22 September , 2012 Share Posted 22 September , 2012 Just returned from a four day stint at Chavasse Farm....Using a mini bus to tour around the various Somme sites.....Saw a few French plod cars but they didn't bother 'us' at all. We had florry jackets a fire extinguisher and spare bulbs (no idea if they fitted the van as it was hired ha ha).....I didn't even look for breath test kits as we took the view that if it's an €11 fine then 'we' would pay the €1 and a few cents each. That said we were confident that we wouldn't get stopped for a B/test check as fines don't start till November. INHO these rumors of lets stop all Brit cars/vans etc is a load of old codswallop....I've been to France umpteen times now and never been pulled over. We do always seem to end up in the customs shed though getting all our kit checked....Perhaps that just cos it's a load of blokes stuffed in a van? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spconnolly007 Posted 22 September , 2012 Share Posted 22 September , 2012 INHO these rumors of lets stop all Brit cars/vans etc is a load of old codswallop....I've been to France umpteen times now and never been pulled over. Graham, ditto and hopefully continues to be the case when I visit Verdun in October Regards Sean Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Watkins Posted 23 September , 2012 Share Posted 23 September , 2012 Sorry to bring this up again, but July has gone, and November is approaching, so it may become relevant. Now that people are back from their summer holidays, does anyone have an update on the situation regarding compulsory breath test kits in France. Martin Sorry if someone already answered this but I'll try. The law requires you to have a tester in your car. The law does not require you to use it but obviously if you do then you need another one. I have not heard of anyone being stopped just to check for a breathtester. The fine after November for lack of a tester will be €11. Contrary to some accounts the police will certainly NOT use it to test you for drinking and driving. I have to say that the British press and Brits in France have got far more agitatated about this than their French cousins who seem far more pragmatic about it all. When I suggested that a French friend tested herself after a couple of glasses of wine, she said " I haven't got one and they're useless in this heat anyway" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin Bennitt Posted 23 September , 2012 Share Posted 23 September , 2012 I've been looking somewhat desultorily for the past few weeks but there still seems to be a supply problem. One Norauto I went too at lunch time had had a delivery that morning but was now sold out. Must be a window of opportunity somewhere before the last minute rush starts in a month's time, but can't say I'm that bothered right now. cheers Martin B Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
healdav Posted 23 September , 2012 Share Posted 23 September , 2012 This discussion is a bit like the one in Britain about ID cards. "We can't have the police stopping everyone and asking for an ID card". Why would this happen when the police are not standing on street corners now, looking suspiciously at everyone? The fact is that the Gendarmerie have much better and more important things to do than stop motorists, British or otherwise, and ask whether they have a breathalyser in the car. If you do get stopped for speeding or something else, they will certainly ask to see you breathalyser (and will ask you to blow into a little bag, anyway), just as they will ask to see your hi-vis jackets, triangle, etc, to prove that they are on the ball. Otherwise, I suggest that everyone has sits down, has nice cup of tea and forgets the whole thing. Just as the French are doing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
centurion Posted 23 September , 2012 Share Posted 23 September , 2012 Just realised that the first time I drove in France was in Sept 1982 and the most recent 2 weeks ago. In those 30 years I have been stopped by the police once - they were doing a check near Dunkirk for stolen cars and wanted to see my papers (or peepers as the policeman who was remarkably like the Gendarme in Allo Allo put it). Drive according to the rules and I would doubt you'll be bothered. However if they do go to the trouble to pull you over then they'll probably do all the checks whilst they are at it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
healdav Posted 24 September , 2012 Share Posted 24 September , 2012 Just realised that the first time I drove in France was in Sept 1982 and the most recent 2 weeks ago. In those 30 years I have been stopped by the police once - they were doing a check near Dunkirk for stolen cars and wanted to see my papers (or peepers as the policeman who was remarkably like the Gendarme in Allo Allo put it). Drive according to the rules and I would doubt you'll be bothered. However if they do go to the trouble to pull you over then they'll probably do all the checks whilst they are at it. Precisely. The last time I was stopped in France was in 1980 - and I cross the frontier at least once a week, and now live their for at least 4 months per year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin Bennitt Posted 24 September , 2012 Share Posted 24 September , 2012 the last time I was stopped was in 1988, admittedly after I'd failed to stop completely at a stop sign. I moved to Hong Kong for five years soon after that so there was no upshot. Still no breathalysers in stock at Norauto this morning when I dropped by cheers Martin B Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muerrisch Posted 24 September , 2012 Share Posted 24 September , 2012 Rather tangential to the thread, but what the heck: Thus far, my wife and I have sinned against the motoring laws in Cyprus [me] and Germany [herself] and Belgium [herself]. Once in each of those. This in a total of 104 years driving, jointly I hasten to add. Any advance? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
egbert Posted 1 October , 2012 Share Posted 1 October , 2012 Tomorrow I will visit the Vosges battlegrounds. If I am stopped by French police, I will ask them for all of you whether they carry their breathalyzers with them after their obligatory pub visit chez Pierre. Stand by. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
egbert Posted 2 October , 2012 Share Posted 2 October , 2012 I just returned from a 5 hrs climb battlefield trip to HWK in France, Vosges mountains. On my way to HWK, I had been stopped by two French policemen. I asked them without hesitation for their breathalyzers and they swiftly handed them out to me. When they asked for my ID, I showed them my GWF member card, German branch. Again without asking they wanted to surrender their guns to me, but I cautioned them that they might need them at shift's end. They understood my concerns, bid au revoir, and left to where they came from -the nearby brasserie "Chez Flick". I think they had more important business there. You do not believe me? Here is the proof - they left their breathalyzers with me and thats how they look like: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geraint Posted 2 October , 2012 Share Posted 2 October , 2012 Ha ha! Good one Egbert!! Thing is though, there is one good thing which will come out of this. All of us with the little soufflets will, at some time, use them. As the Use By date passes, I will probably blow into them as a novelty. I'll have a bottle of 1664 or three, and then blow - just to see..... And I'll probably be shocked at the soiufflet's indicator. So its gonna be thousands of blokes and blokettes like me learning suddenly what the limit really is! I'm looking forward to doing it... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grantowi Posted 2 October , 2012 Share Posted 2 October , 2012 You're a blokette ? Must say, you do hide it rather well Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steven Broomfield Posted 2 October , 2012 Share Posted 2 October , 2012 Question: if you're TT, do you still need to carry one of these things? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seadog Posted 2 October , 2012 Author Share Posted 2 October , 2012 Drink driving eh! you just have to laugh!!!! Don`t you? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
centurion Posted 3 October , 2012 Share Posted 3 October , 2012 Question: if you're TT, do you still need to carry one of these things? Presumably there is always the anger that you become a lapsed TT Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muerrisch Posted 3 October , 2012 Share Posted 3 October , 2012 do you mean dangler? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geraint Posted 3 October , 2012 Share Posted 3 October , 2012 I watched Motorway Cops last night, and the plod in question had stopped a car, and breathalised the driver who turned out to be sober.But they also found a half smoked joint on him, and they then let him go. This was in 2008 according to the tax disk, when cannabis had, I think, been de-classified, and people could legally wander about smoking it. As today's cannabis skunk/skank/skonk? is far stronger than the mellow 1970s grass stuff - shouldn't we be more worried about pot smokers doing 70 mph on rural backwater French roads? Disgusted Tonbridge Wells Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bellflower Posted 3 October , 2012 Share Posted 3 October , 2012 They were on sale on the P&O ferry to Calais on Monday £5.99, but no NF mark . Went into Leclerc in Arras yesterday and they haven't got any. I'm shopping in Carrefour tomorrow so I'll see if they've got some..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roger H Posted 3 October , 2012 Share Posted 3 October , 2012 They were on sale on the P&O ferry to Calais on Monday £5.99 What? Joints?!! Roger Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
veklee Posted 3 October , 2012 Share Posted 3 October , 2012 got mine free at the tour de france Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geraint Posted 3 October , 2012 Share Posted 3 October , 2012 What? Joints?!! Roger Oh Roger! You dope! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bellflower Posted 6 October , 2012 Share Posted 6 October , 2012 Checked all the big stores in Arras no kits. Asked a guy in an auto store there and he said there were none in Arras at all. On the DFDS ferry they have kits with no NF mark, so you pay your momey and take a chance............ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
egbert Posted 6 October , 2012 Share Posted 6 October , 2012 I told you earlier in this thread: they equip the French police force first, as they need them most....after that they equip the mail men and so on, last will be the public Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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