France continues to impose fines, particularly speeding fines, on UK drivers despite there being no explanation as to how authorities obtain drivers’ addresses in Britain.
french outlet The connection has noted that it remains a “mystery” how UK motorists continue to receive fines after a data-sharing agreement between the two countries ended in recent years.
Since Brexit, there has been no information-sharing agreement between France and the United Kingdom.
And yet records show an increase in the number of fines issued to British drivers between 2022 and 2023.
The 2023 annual traffic offenses report from the French Road Safety Observatory (ONISR) shows that 62,780 fines were issued to drivers in the UK last year, an increase of 5 per cent on the 59,836 issued in 2022.
The French media The Connexion has noted that it remains a “mystery” how UK addresses continue to receive fines, despite the data sharing agreement between the two countries ending with Brexit.
In many cases, fines are likely to be issued by rental companies that have the direction of the driver behind the wheel of a rental car that has broken down.
But in other cases it is British drivers of cars registered in the United Kingdom who receive a surprise fine at their doorstep.
‘Partner countries’ (of which there are 20), including Belgium, Spain and the Netherlands, the worst offenders, received fines in the hundreds of thousands, but Britain was the highest ‘pais non partenaires’ (non-partner country). from the list.
Compared to the other two non-partner countries listed, Bulgaria and Greece, the UK’s fines were huge.
The fines received in Bulgaria and Greece amounted to 5,853 and 2,920 respectively.
With its partner countries, France exchanges vehicle registration data, including postal addresses, of vehicles caught on camera committing violations.
However, as The Connexion notes, the UK became a partner nation in 2021, when Brexit discontinued the agreement with the EU.
The 2023 annual report on traffic offenses from the French Road Safety Observatory (ONISR) shows that 62,780 fines were sent to the UK last year, up from 59,836 in 2022.
Drivers complaining about receiving speeding fines in France via online forums are a mix of drivers who drove French hire cars and those who use their own UK-registered vehicles across the Channel.
A spokesperson for the French department of Security Routière confirmed to The Connexion that the United Kingdom is no longer a partner and said that “there is therefore no exchange of information with this country”, but did not clarify how the fines are sent to private addresses in the United Kingdom.
The ONISR report states that “the role played by the municipal police in controlling traffic rules (not including parking) through the use of PVe (‘electronic’ fines) is now very important.”
The PVE registers the violation digitally and sends the fine to the registered owner’s address and is replacing physical fines.
A reader of The Connexion told the newspaper that her husband received “two fines for speeding on the round trip to the port of Saint-Malo.”
‘The fines arrived at our address in the UK, which was a shock. We paid them, but we were under the impression that there was no agreement and that the DVLA should not have given them our address.’
Online forums show a mix of drivers receiving speeding fines imposed for driving both French rental cars and their own UK-registered vehicles across the Channel.
With its partner countries, France exchanges vehicle registration data, including postal addresses, of vehicles caught on camera committing crimes, but the UK is not a “partner country”.
Five EU countries have accused Transport for London (TfL) of illegally obtaining the names and addresses of European drivers to impose low and ultra-low emissions fines in the capital.
Separately, five EU countries have accused Transport for London (TfL) of illegally obtaining the names and addresses of European drivers to impose low and ultra-low emissions fines in the capital.
Reported by the guardian At the beginning of the year, TfL issued more than 320,000 penalties since 2021.
There is no information sharing agreement (as already mentioned with speeding fines imposed by France), but a data agreement existed before Brexit for traffic offences. However, this did not cover pollution charges.
European governments described it as “possibly one of the largest data breaches in EU history.”
TfL told The Guardian that “local laws” allowed authorities to share information about vehicle owners with the UK to enforce traffic rules.
EU countries argue that national laws allow the UK to access personal data only for criminal offenses, not civil ones, which include ULEZ.
This is Money has contacted Sécurité Routière for comment.
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