The French and Swiss have finally agreed to share driver data for the purpose of collecting fines. From the 4th January if you are driving a Swiss plated car and a flashed in France or vice-versa. The data exchange will be via the Eurocaris system. Eurocaris is a European database which is oriented to truck tachograph tracking. Both speeding and parking fines will be targetted. Apparently on half of Swiss bother paying French fines, the figure is more like 90% for the French when they get caught in Switzerland.

Here is a list of the fines in Switzerland
- 40 CHF for 1 to 5 km/h over the limit (20 CHF on autoroutes)
- 120 CHF for 6 to 10 km/h (60CHF on autoroutes)
- up to 250 CHF for 11 to 15 km/h (120 CHF on autoroutes).

Worth keeping this in mind if you are on a road trip this winter.

This is great news. I am British but live in France close to the Swiss border and I get sick of many Swiss drivers treating the roads around my way as their private racetrack, free from the fear of prosecution. This seems to be a particular problem with the ‘Big German car’ brigade. (And the Swiss seem to love such cars almost as much as the British). Everyday on my way to work I will see Swiss drivers in BMW’s and the like passing me when I am doing 80-90 km/ hr at what must be 120 -140 or more. For some reason many other Swiss drivers seem to drive everywhere at 60 km/hr - 90 km/hr zone, 50 km/hr zones, it makes no difference!

All we need now is for the French police to do something about all the British registered cars around my way that are on the road illegally and which are used by Brits who are resident in France or who leave a car in France for them to use when they are visiting their ski chalets - no UK VED disc (or one that is 6 months to 2 years out of date, showing that the car hasn’t been driven legally in the UK for quite a while) and yet no French CT or insurance ticket in the windscreen either! In France anyone becoming a resident is supposed to register their car within 3 months, but it seems many Brits, not wanting the expense of changing their headlights, paying the associated registration tax, getting a CT certificate and so on simply don’t bother.

And yes, the French are hardly paragons of virtuous driving either - but at least they do seem to get pulled up by the police for it!

P.s. The wording of the original post is a little ambiguous. When it comes to French drivers around 90% of them actually payup when caught breaking Swiss traffic regulations. In comparison the Swiss often fail to pay the fines when they are caught breaking traffic regulations in France, an observation which fits in with my own experiences!

http://www.chamonet.com/whats_new_article.php?id_whats_new=6192&id_back=1