Le prang

I've admitted before that I'm not exactly the world's best driver.

Probably fair to middling would be the best description with parking remaining my weakest point.

Well that and negotiating ramps leading to and from underground car parks.

But that is ground well trodden - or not so well driven  - as the case may be.

As far as accidents go? Well, I've been pretty fortunate over the years.

I've only had one major incident. It happened almost two decades ago on a long drive back from Florence in Italy to Frankfurt in Germany.

I was in Switzerland late at night, clearly driving too quickly given the pouring rain conditions, with dogs in the back and my late mother in the passenger seat.

It was nothing too dramatic, just a one vehicle (mine) accident ending up in the middle of the motorway, the car written off and my dear old ma (unhurt) asking, "So can we continue now?"

Apart from that, nothing. Not even a bump or a dent (I don't consider that Paris underground ramp affair to have been an accident, rather a moment or two of close contact involving a borrowed clunker - well it resembled one by the time I had finished - and the walls of a car park).

Give the man a prize.

Until last week, that is.

Because that's when I had the "prang".

Of course it wasn't my fault - these sorts of things never are, are they?

But in the eyes of the law and for insurance purposes, it was.

After a dash around the supermarket and the less-than-15-items till, because these places are not the temples of delight for me that they seem to be for many others, I made my way back to my car.

Leaving the car park, I found myself behind a woman driving at less than five kilometres an hour with a couple of stalled engines thrown in for good measure.

I kept my distance, ready - I thought - for the next unexpectedly sudden stop.

But as we both approached the roundabout, I failed to anticipate that she would decide to come to a complete halt for no reason at all.

Even though there was nothing coming (although she later claimed otherwise) Clarice - for that turned out to be her name - slammed her foot on the brake.

I didn't.

It was the gentlest of bumps but enough to have us both jump out of our repective cars to inspect the damage.

Mine was unscathed - apart from a slightly buckled registration plate, while hers...well it seemed to have "suffered" the smallest of dents beneath the rear bumper, but one which looked suspiciously "older" to me.

I said as much, along with a few well chosen but polite (honestly) words on the level of her driving skills.

Clarice though, remained convinced that the blame lay fairly and squarely with me. She had stopped because of oncoming traffic and I was clearly in the wrong because I had driven into her.

"Isn't that right Gladys?" she said to her friend who had been sitting in the passenger seat.

Gladys didn't look entirely convinced, but nodded in circumspect agreement.

And then the official fun began.

Neither of us had a copy of the wonderfully named (in French) constat amiable d'accident automobile (accident report) in the car (I had recently had the annual clear-out and must have chucked it) required for insurance purposes if the accident is minor and the two parties involved decide to come to an amicable agreement.

Clarice didn't have one either because...well the reason will become clearer in a moment.

So what to do?

Well first of all, I took a couple of photos of the position of both cars when the two joined in unholy "bumplock".

Friendly enough after the initial "shock", Clarice didn't think much of my idea of driving together to the nearest insurance agent to request a form to fill out together.

Instead she wanted to call her husband for advice on what to do.

He, however, was unavailable.

So in true "Qui veut gagner des millions" ("Who wants to be a millionaire") style, Clarice opted to ring a close friend who convinced her that we should all make our way to the police municipale where we could sort it out.

The "amicable agreement" looked set to turn in to a major (road) incident: the main protagonists - that slightly bent registration plate and the dubious dent.

So off to the police municipale we headed. I led the way, as something told me that I would be better off in front of Clarice rather than behind her.

As luck would have it, and this being France, the police municipale had, of course, shut up shop for the day, although there was a contact number for emergencies.

I kept quiet, fearing the worst.

But the now emboldened Clarice had a "better" solution - and that without 'phoning a friend.

"The gendarmerie!" she exclaimed.

"We can go there and report the incident. Plus they'll have all the necessary forms available."

Gladys and I exchanged looks as though we sensed that this would prove to be yet another over-the-top reaction, but Clarice was not a woman to be stopped. She was in full quest mode...justice.

Besides, I wasn't in the mood for an argument and so, off we set.

A few moments later we all walked in to the gendarmerie compound to be greeted by a young man dragging on the remnants of a cigarette.

Explanations quickly made, he told us that the constat was all we really needed, whereby we could agree what had happened, countersign and then complete details of our own version of events for our respective insurance companies.

As for the constat - he didn't have one. We didn't have one. Did we really want to fill out an official report for something so minor?

"No," I thought, as providence once again stepped in, this time in the form of a call from Clarice's husband.

Her saviour. My saviour. He had a spare constat and would make his way into town so that we could finally reach that agreement which had Clarice had been so unwilling to accept in the first place.

We all bid farewell to the gendarme who wished us a pleasant evening and waited.

The 15 minutes Monsieur Husband of Clarice said he would need to arrive eventually turned into half an hour but, once he appeared, I quickly discovered I had an ally.

"Honey - again?" he  said, looking at his wife as he introduced himself to me.

I looked at him.

I looked at Clarice

"Again? I asked

"Yes, this is the third time in as many months," he replied.

I returned my gaze to Clarice, who preferred to look away sheepishly.

As Monsieur Husband of Clarice and I completed the tedious task of detaling what had happened and answering what seemed like a multitude of questions, his wife remained understandably quiet.

She no longer contested my version of events which, I knew, would not exonerate me in terms of the insurance claim.

And that suspicious dent?

Well that'll be for the insurance company to decide. They have the photos and the completed constat.

Sure, I'll have to drive extra carefully for the next five years apparently if I want to recover my no claims bonus.

On past form, that shouldn't be too much of a problem...unless I happen to "bump" into the likes of Clarice on the road.

But at least now, even though it's not a legal obligation in France, I've got a copy of the constat in the car...just in case.

One French couple's recipe for to avoid paying traffic fines - and it's legal

It's one of those absurd but true stories which both defies belief and illustrates how a loophole in the law, even in a country such as France which seems to have so many of them, can be exploited to its full potential.

As reported in the regional daily Nice Matin, a couple in the French city of Cannes have managed to rack up fines for traffic offences amounting to the grand total of just over €23,000.

Driving documents (from Wikipedia)

The infractions date back to July 2010 and so far there have been 70 of them - for speeding, illegal parking, not paying at motorway toll booths...and the list goes on.

Oh yes, and as well as the fines there have also been points deducted for those speeding offences.

But the charges against the couple have been dropped - even though it's clear they must be the ones committing the offences.

And it's all because of that loophole in the law which has allowed them to register the car they use in the name of their son.

He is, according to the carte grise or the car registration papers, the legal owner of the car - a Fiat Punto - and as such considered by law to be the driver - unless proven otherwise.

So why not charge him, you might be asking.

Well he's only four years old and obviously is too young to be held accountable.

And as his parents refused to attend a court hearing, the judge had no option but to drop the charges.

"It's clearly absurd but that's the way the law operates," the judge said in dismissing the case.

"Because the parents didn't attend the hearing, the only thing I can do it drop the charges," he continued.

"It isn't sufficient to assume that they were trying to get away with not paying fines, it also has to be proven that they were the ones actually driving (when the offences took place).

The law allowing parents to register vehicles in the name of their children was apparently introduced in 1984 and was supposed to allow 16 and 17-year-old learner drivers to have a car.

The art of parking badly - in a Paris métro station

Parisian drivers don't have the best of reputations.

They tend to drive as though they own the roads, only give way when forced to and heaven help you if you enter the Boulevard Périphérique ring road around the French capital and fail to go with the flow.

It ain't for the weak hearted!

(screenshot from AFP video)

When it comes to parking, Parisians are (almost) the proverbial law unto themselves.

The space is too small when parallel parking on the street?

Doesn't matter because with the gentlest of nudging it can of course be made larger.

That's right the space fits the car and not the other way around.

Of course there are always the underground alternatives, plenty of them actually.

And that's what one motorist was aiming for on Tuesday morning as he entered what he thought was the entrance to the Haussmann parking.

Except as the 26-year-old began easing his four wheel drive down the entrance he realised his mistake.

He was in fact (as you can see from the video) trying to make his way into the entrance of a Paris métro station!

French motorist fined 143 times - for the same offence

In France motorists are required to carry a warning triangle in their car - just in case they break down of course.

It has been the law since July 1, 2008

So woe betide any driver stopped by the police and discovered not to have one somewhere in the vehicle.

A €90 fine can, and in all probability will, be issued, with the letter arriving in the post a couple of days.

And that's what one motorist from the town of Capbreton in the southwest of France expected after he returned from holiday, knowing that he had been stopped and found to be driving at the end of September without the required warning triangle shortly before leaving.

A letterbox stuffed full of fines (screenshot TF1 news report)

Except Gilles Rocher got more than he bargained for when he opened his letter box because he had been sent not just one, but 143 fines for the very same infraction - amounting to the princely sum of €12,870.

"I had fully expected a fine as I had been told I would be sent one," he told TF1 news.

"But surprise! Instead of just the one, I received 143 each with a different number meaning that I had apparently broken the law not just once but 143 times."

Worse still, he somehow had to find the money to pay the fine - or should that be fines - within 15 days or risk a penalty charge being levied.

When he rang the hotline of Le Centre Automatisé de Constatation des Infractions (CACIR) to find out what he should do, his story was met with a certain incredulity and the best advice he was offered was to contest each of the fines individually in writing - and by recorded delivery.

143 fines for one infraction (screenshot TF1 news report)

Fat lot of help that was.

But thankfully the camera crews were around and journalists were on to the story.

A call to the interior ministry brought a response from one of its spokesmen, Pierre-Henry Brandet.

"If it becomes apparent that there has been a bug in the system, as seems to be the case, then the tickets will be immediately cancelled and there'll be no need to pay," he said.

"It's a regrettable incident but one which remains anecdotal."

Not for poor Gilles perhaps, who must have had the shock of his life

But the following day, as the regional daily, Sud Ouest reported, everything had been resolved.

All 143 fines had been annulled - including the original one.

Hassan Ayaf - a man with two valid French driving licences

Whenever some sort of bureaucratic balls-up occurs you can be certain that somewhere along the line it's going to have repercussions for Joe Public - or in the following case, Hassan Ayaf.

The 36-year-old father-of-three lives the town of Belaruc-les-Bains, a half-hour's drive from the southern French city of Montpellier.

And that's important to the tale because Ayaf operates bulldozers for a living and as a consequence has to be able to travel from building site to building site without any difficult.

In other words he needs his driving licence.

French driving licence (permis de conduire), car registration document (carte grise) and car insurance (carte verte) - from Wikipedia

But in January last year he received a letter in the post telling him that he had lost his licence.

As he told the regional daily Midi Libre, Ayaf felt that, "His world had fallen apart" as no driving licence equalled no job.

What made the whole thing more incomprehensible, as far as he was concerned, was that he thought he still had enough points left on his licence.

In France a person possessing a full driving licence (or permis de conduire) has 12 points.

Whenever an infraction occurs a certain number of points are lost until at zero (obviously) the licence is withdrawn.

"I didn't understand," he told the paper. "All I did was drive without a seat belt."

But that didn't help his cause in the slightest as his licence had gone and in spite of writing to the local administration insisting that some sort of mistake had been made, he was obliged to wait the required six months by law before he was able to apply to retake his driving test.

"It was a difficult time," he said. "I had to rely on family and friends to drive me to different building sites and often I remained there over the weekend."

In June he received the green light to begin the process of retaking his test - the theory and the practical parts - which lasted until January this year when he passed.

And that meant that Ayaf was now considered a "novice" with, as is the case with all recently-qualified drivers, just six of those precious points to his name and the possibility to gain the remaining six points over a two or three year period.

But wait - this is where Monsieur or Madame French Bureaucracy stepped in to admit its "mea culpa".

Because in February Ayaf received another official letter informing him that the cancellation of his original driving licence had now been quashed.

That's right, he is now the certified holder of two valid driving licences; one as a novice (with six points) and the other as a now re-instated longtime driver (with three points).

Vive la France. Vive la bureaucratie!

Fined for parking a tractor...in Paris

We've surely all at one time or another had a brush with bureaucracy that has left us perhaps exasperated at the "jobsworth" attitude of some people and frustrated but shoulder-shrugging at the "them's the rules" of others.

Occasionally though mistakes are made that surely cannot fail to bring a smile to the face, especially when they are so self-evidently ridiculous.

Such is the case of Patrick Pilak who, just before Christmas, opened up his mail to discover a fine for a "parking infringement" issued in Paris.

(Screenshot from France 3 news)

Not so strange, you might be thinking. After all, if you're at all familiar with Paris you'll know just how difficult it can be to find a parking space at the best of times and the pre-Christmas shopping period was one that certainly encouraged the capital's motorists to be more "creative" than ever.

Except Pilak isn't from Paris. In fact he's from nowhere near the city.

He's a farmer in the village of Gouzougnat in the département of Creuse slap, bang in the heart of rural France in the département of Creuse and almost 400 kilometres from the French capital.

And that fine? Well it wasn't just for your run-of-the-mill hatchback, a family saloon or even a hulking four-wheel drive some might insist piloting around Paris.

Nope (worse perhaps) it was for a tractor, owned by Pilak, which had apparently been illegally parked on the rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis at a point at which the street could most be definitely described as "colourful" or "a quarter best known for its ladies of easy virtue" as France 3 television described it.

It didn't take the 49-year-old bio farmer long to work out that there must have been some sort of mistake.

The registration number of the vehicle that had committed the infraction tallied with that of his tractor, but it was also described as a "Ford" whereas Pilak drove a "Renault"...around his fields.

Apart from that of course, he couldn't possibly have been in Paris at the time in question as he had been working.

"I replied by registered mail explaining that the vehicle that had apparently been parked illegally was in fact a tractor - my tractor," he told France 3 news.

"And I added that I couldn't possibly have been where the alleged offence took place at the time indicated because I was working almost 400 kilometres away."

Pilak doesn't intend to pay the €11 fine and of course realises that that there has been some sort of mix-up, but just to drive (sorry) home the point he calculated for Agence France Presse how long the (one-way) journey time would be from Gouzougnat to Paris.

"If I wanted to go to Paris it certainly wouldn't be by tractor,' he said.

"At 15 kilometres per hour maximum speed it would take more than 24 hours to make the trip."

Motorway madness in France - changing drivers at 130km/h

While most motorists might get from A to B with only the slightest of hitches and the minimum of mistakes there are also of course plenty of daft driving stories, plain stupid ones, those involving reckless fools and others simply defying belief.

What follows surely is a tale that falls into each of the idiotic categories - and then some.

And it just goes to show that mad motorway stories aren't confined to summer speeding when the media is hunting around for the unusual to fill the airwaves or column inches.

On Tuesday highway police patrolling a stretch of the A10 motorway in the département of Vienne in central-western France stopped a car because they had spotted the driver and passenger exchanging seats.

Maybe that should be capitalised to add emphasis.

No, obviously the car wasn't stationary as the driver and passenger swapped places otherwise the police wouldn't have had to stop it.

Instead it was cruising along at the official speed limit on French motorways of 130 km/h or just over 80 mph!

The less-than judicious manouevre came to the attention of the police because as the two attempted to change places their vehicle (not surprisingly perhaps) suddenly dropped speed to a more modest 60 km/h or 37 mph.

When the car was pulled over at the next rest area and the police had checked the papers of both the driver and the passenger, it transpired that son who had been trying to hand over control of the vehicle to his 70-year-old father had in fact had his licence suspended:

"Something that probably explains why the two were willing to take such a risk", according to police.

Among the offences with which both men have been jointly or individually charged are driving with a suspended licence, not wearing seat belts and - as if it needed to be spellt out - "driving under conditions that didn't allow for easy manouevring."

Legalese presumably for "dangerous driving".

Their fate will be determined by a judge.

Mad summer speeding in France

This weekend in France is expected to be another busy one on the country's motorways as Aoûtiens, those who traditionally take their summer holidays in August, make their way back home.

Bumper-to-bumper tailbacks are forecast and it's unlikely that many motorists will have the chance to break the speed limit - even if tempted.

That hasn't been the case throughout the summer of course, and there have been two recent stories of the madness that seems to strike many once they get control of a vehicle.

They're not related, apart from the fact that they both took place here in France, and have to do with speeding.

Actually, maybe that's an understatement. Lunacy and wilful disregard for other road users might be better terms.

The first concerns a Belgian motorist who clocked up a whopping 245 km/h (or 152 miles per hour in "old money") on a stretch of the A39 motorway in the department of Saône-et-Loire.

The limit is 130 kilometres (or 80 miles) per hour, and the speed set by the 44-year-old trader was "a record" on that particular portion of the motorway according to local police.

His driver's licence was immediately withdrawn, the car immobilised and he had to stump up an on-the-spot €750 fine before being allowed to continue the rest of his journey...in a taxi.

He'll get his time in court though to explain exactly why he was travelling quite so fast.

Perhaps it had something to do with the make of car, which (surprise surprise) was a Ferrari.

Boys and their toys huh?

The second story of mad summer speeding took place further north in the nation's capital.

It was on the Boulevard Péripherique to be precise, the often delightfully congested ring road around Paris, where the maximum speed limit is 80 kilometres (around 50 miles) per hour and when the traffic is free flowing, the urge to give gas proves a little too tempting for some.

And that in spite of the strategically placed fixed radars.

This time around the speeding culprit was on two wheels rather than four.

Anyone who has the displeasure or misfortune of regularly travelling on the péripherique during rush hour will know that the habit of many motorcyclists is to "create their own extra lane" as they overtake virtually stationary cars stuck behind one another.

Motorists who fail to check their wing and rear view mirrors regularly, can often find themselves "cutting up" a motorbike as they attempt to change lanes.

Anyway this particular speeding infraction clearly didn't occur during peak traffic hours as the motorcyclist managed to notch up the fastest registered speed on the péripherique since 2004.

He reached a maximum of 190 kilometres (118 miles) per hour as the police gave chase.

A record to be proud of indeed and one which will also undoubtedly result in a driving ban when he appears in court charged with (among other things) "deliberately putting the lives of others in danger".

Because when finally intercepted by the police, it was discovered that not only had he speeding (obviously) but that he also had his arm in a plaster cast!

No comment.

Fined for smoking at the wheel

Motorists who smoke beware!

Think twice before lighting up when taking the wheel of a car - at least here in France.

Because if the police catch you with a ciggie in your mouth, you might just end up facing a fine.

Well at least it could happen if the case of Yoni Bismuth is anything to go by.

The 28-year-old Parisian locksmith enjoys the more-than-occasional puff even when on the road, and that's exactly what he was doing when police stopped him last weekend for having run a red light.

He was of course handed down a fine for his first offence, but then to his surprise - and shock - he received another one for smoking.

"I asked the policeman not to fine me, telling him that now that I knew it was an offence I wouldn't do it again," he said.

"But all he said is 'I'm not listening, a fine is a fine'."

And it was indeed - €22 worth, although Bismuth didn't lose any points.

Well that's one side of the story but of course, as is typical in such cases, the forces of law and order have a slightly different tale to tell as to the version of events.

First of all there was the contravention of having run a red light at an intersection while driving in a bus lane, according to Frédéric Cheyre of the police precinct in the capital's 19th arrondissement, and then there was that issue with the cigarette.

"What the officer on duty saw at the same time as the driver not stopping at the traffic lights was that he had a cigarette in one hand and a lighter in the other," he said.

So did that make him incapable of driving? And more importantly did the act of smoking (or even the intention to) constitute an offence under the law?

Well the highway code in France is a bit fuzzy on the issue, unlike that of using a mobile 'phone while driving, which has been an offence since 2003.

And as far as Jean-Baptiste Iosca, a lawyer specialising in road traffic offences, is concerned, the police overstepped the mark.

"It's strictly stupid, illegal and above all abusive," he said.

"And something absolutely must be done about it."

Bismuth intends to contest the fine, just as a nurse successfully did in the Gironde department of southwestern France in January this year.

"I don't find it normal," he said.

"Even with a cigarette in the hand, you can drive without any problem. Millions of people do it every day," he added.

"Today I've had a fine for smoking, next time perhaps it'll be because I haven't shaved properly."

Anyone got a light?