British motorists who travel abroad in their own car will soon be subjected to a new European Directive. This Directive enables countries in the Euro-zone, to be able to exchange any information regarding traffic offences and other traffic related incidents.
This means that if a motorist, drives above the speed limit in say France, then the driver would be penalized for the offence in say Italy or Germany where ever the driver resides.
For some reason the EU ministers think that this will save lives. EU transport ministers came to a political agreement regarding the directive in late 2010 and was also approved by the British as part of the legal basis for the "Cross Border Enforcement Directive" that deals with other police matters of cooperation, other than transport matters.
However the British Government did not opt in to the new directive and are not at the moment included in its provisions.
Antonio Avenoso, Director of the E.T.S.C, (European Transport Safety Council) says"The situation is less than ideal, but the council and European Parliament must weigh up the benefits of this legislation and address the problem of enforcing the traffic laws on non resident motorists".
The British Government have been criticised by the ETSC, but were well within their rights not to opt in. EU Ministers have long been wanting a cross border agreement to catch and punish drivers for motoring offences, indeed it is thought that foreign drivers account for 5% of traffic driving on other countries roads, but account for up to 15% of speeding offences.
However UK drivers will be exempt from this and according to Euro Ministers will be putting motorists travelling in other member states at risk from accidents due to speeding.
My own opinion as a well known Euro sceptic is some what different. This law seems to me to be starting at the rear. If car drivers can be fined in other countries, then the next step will be to change all the motoring laws to one European standard, we will all have the same road signs in say six or seven different languages, probably costing billions of tax payers Euros. The politicians in Europe will say that this will be the only way that the cross border laws can be implemented, we in the UK have seen this so many times before.
I am lucky enough to own a small holiday home in France and travel across Europe regularly. You cant help but notice that many of the road signs are different to ours, the biggest difference to us all is that we in the UK are in miles per hour and the continent are using kilometres per hour, also we drive on the left and the rest of Europe on the right. The point I am making is that we would be easy targets for cross-Border targeting by Police forces on the unsuspecting driver taking a holiday on continental Europe for the first time. Police forces would setting up traps on all the border crossings between member states to get their hands on the fines they know will be paid by mother country where the crime is committed.
I am sure that people in the USA will be able to relate to this, the state troopers waiting for the poor unsuspecting motorist. Also the London Congestion charge just waiting for some unsuspecting motorists, to drive into the zone and gets a fine because he was from Yorkshire and perhaps did not know anything about the zone, we all know this is just another tax on the motorist and nothing to do with road safety.
French police will have a field day as they hide away in the little side slip roads on the French motorways, knowing that the poor unsuspecting motorist from a foreign country will be forced to pay a fine when he goes home after his holidays, just because he may have gone over the speed limit by a few kilometres and was flashed by the speed gun from the hidden French motorway police and then receives a fine back home without any defence or warning.
Britain has not opted in to this ruling, and I hope that they never will, it will just be another "cash cow"from the poor unsuspecting motorist on his holidays in Europe.
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