[LM24] Le Mans advice

[Fab]

And remember : there's now a lot of speed traps eveywhere, and more to come, and the cops are now EXTREMELY harsh with speed limits (exemple : 132 instead of 130 km/h on the motorways = 90 € fee, payed by a friend of mine last week ; you can imagine if it's more !).

Drive safely !

[Pilgrimage]

Originally posted by Fab
And remember : there's now a lot of speed traps eveywhere, and more to come, ...

Great - last year i drove down on the speed limit and everyone (it seemed like anyway) that overtook me was "pulled" just a few minutes down the road! ... and it's so tempting to put your toe down on the gorgeous roads, esp when you have over 220 bhp and a string of Lotus' etc are screaming by.
Ah well - only way to keep the money in my pocket i suppose.

[Pilgrimage]

Actually- just checked my pocket & appear to have lost all my money anyway!

[PascaLM]

Originally posted by Fab
And remember : there's now a lot of speed traps eveywhere, and more to come, and the cops are now EXTREMELY harsh with speed limits (exemple : 132 instead of 130 km/h on the motorways = 90 € fee, payed by a friend of mine last week ; you can imagine if it's more !).

Drive safely !

Yes !
Here are some informations about the speed traps :
For general information (in french only):

here
They are permanent :"radars fixes"
or mobile :"radars mobiles"
900 (!) "radars" will be on place between 2004 and 2005.
Here is the radars map.

[Paddy_NL]

Originally posted by PascaLM
Yes !
Here are some informations about the speed traps :
For general information (in french only):

here
They are permanent :"radars fixes"
or mobile :"radars mobiles"
900 (!) "radars" will be on place between 2004 and 2005.
Here is the radars map.

...and hello back to the people in the black British-plated PT Cruiser who followed me for more than 90 minutes on the A31 in France, just before Christmas. On an average of 120 mph + they kept on trying to keep up, and to my surprise that car did pretty well. As I went off at Beaune I saw them waving goodbye as they went past, it must have been my Goodwood-sticker that made them wave at a Dutch car

Ps. By the looks of it average speeds mentioned above should only be tried to reach in Jerry-country from now on, shame

[Aysedasi]

Can I just say that if anyone has useful travel information, routes, good places to stop, traffic black spots and cameras etc. to avoid, apart from being useful here, if I ever work out again how to upload to my site, I'll add them to that as well!

[Aysedasi]

Originally posted by Paddy_NL


Ps. By the looks of it average speeds mentioned above should only be tried to reach in Jerry-country from now on, shame

Not a shame at all Paddy. Wiothout wishing to sound "holier-than-thou", if you were travelling at 120 you should be ashamed of yourself.

[kdr]

Originally posted by Paddy_NL
...and hello back to the people in the black British-plated PT Cruiser who followed me for more than 90 minutes on the A31 in France, just before Christmas. On an average of 120 mph + they kept on trying to keep up, and to my surprise that car did pretty well. As I went off at Beaune I saw them waving goodbye as they went past, it must have been my Goodwood-sticker that made them wave at a Dutch car

no paddy you'll find they were driving that fast to avoid being recognised in such a hideously ugly car...

[Aysedasi]

They obviously had perishable goods in the boot which they'd transferred from their M3 after a shopping trip......

[simon c]

i've got a spare general entrance ticket as well as a spare ticket for a hospitality suite (i couldn't book tickets for 1 person!!! - and with not having any mates its a problem!!!!). cost £75 hospitality, plus whatever the entrance is. i will sell both for £50.00 on race morning. anybody interested ? this is a genuine offer. if anyonebody wanst to send me a private message then we can sort out the meeting place / time etc
the hospitality suite is on the outside of the circuit in braking area for ford chicanes (no clues needed then!). you can get good food, beer (naturally) and chill out for a while. plus there is a good viewing area which is raised, so none of that horrible fencing gets in your way!!!

[Paddy_NL]

Originally posted by Aysedasi
Not a shame at all Paddy. Wiothout wishing to sound "holier-than-thou", if you were travelling at 120 you should be ashamed of yourself.

I did break the record that day to my parents'home, 870 kms (540 mls) in 6 hrs 30 flat


simon c>>
I might be interrested, is the card transferrable? Maybe we can swop places between the 10 of us... :|

[Aysedasi]

Originally posted by simon c
i've got a spare general entrance ticket as well as a spare ticket for a hospitality suite (i couldn't book tickets for 1 person!!! - and with not having any mates its a problem!!!!). cost £75 hospitality, plus whatever the entrance is. i will sell both for £50.00 on race morning. anybody interested ? this is a genuine offer. if anyonebody wanst to send me a private message then we can sort out the meeting place / time etc
the hospitality suite is on the outside of the circuit in braking area for ford chicanes (no clues needed then!). you can get good food, beer (naturally) and chill out for a while. plus there is a good viewing area which is raised, so none of that horrible fencing gets in your way!!!

MRI, I assume?

[Aysedasi]

Originally posted by Paddy_NL
I did break the record that day to my parents'home, 870 kms (540 mls) in 6 hrs 30 flat


simon c>>
I might be interrested, is the card transferrable? Maybe we can swop places between the 10 of us... :|

Sorry, not even vaguely impressed.

[rdjones]

Sounds like it to me Ayse, of course I am not using them this year.....

[TuscanR]

Hi all, I hope to see you there as we have now decided to go the Page and Moy route ( thanks Nordic )and one of our group has decided to drive, One final question though my friend has a radar detector fitted to his car and the Pub know-it-all told us they are illegal ( I promise you we are not a bunch of alcoholics, its just a handy place to meet and discuss daft ideas ! )in france and if stopped we could be fined, is this true??? Many thanks Paul.

[Nordic]

They are ilegal in france, not only will you be fined, but you may have to go to the police station for a while to explain, you will lose the detector and a fair wedge of your hoilday money to boot.
Not worth it.
You can have fun on the drive down and mostly, keep within the speed limits.
What campsite are you in?

[kdr]

personally i find it a great laugh driving extremely fast thru france...so what if you don't see anything and constantly worry about being caught...i mean thats fun...isn't it...?

[TuscanR]

dont know what campsite we are in yet I have to speak to my mate who has the healthier credit card who booked or is booking the tickets. Thanks for the advice Nordic the system will now be taken out before we set off (still got six months of fending off the UK plod first!) Is there a preferable campsite to be in??

[Fab]

Originally posted by Paddy_NL
I did break the record that day to my parents'home, 870 kms (540 mls) in 6 hrs 30 flat

Hope you won't break the record to sleep one night in the french "tower of London" to...

Mind the price : 1000 €, confiscation of the car, one night in jail and a trail... is it worth it ? Up to you, I'm not lecture you, I just would like you to keep good memories of France, and I don't think the gendarmes are part of it...

[Fab]

Originally posted by TuscanR
Thanks for the advice Nordic the system will now be taken out before we set off

Good choice here, you'll enjoy your trip better that way !

Originally posted by TuscanR
Is there a preferable campsite to be in??

Red is a good one, close from the track, but there's plenty around, and you could prefer to be inside the circuit... I'm not the specialist here, asz I don't camp !

[Aysedasi]

Originally posted by kdr
personally i find it a great laugh driving extremely fast thru france...so what if you don't see anything and constantly worry about being caught...i mean thats fun...isn't it...?

With all due respect to Paddy, how would we like having "foreigners" driving a 120 mph through our country? If you do it and you get caught, don't expect any sympathy from me. Leave yourself plenty of time and enjoy.......

[kdr]

spot on!

[simon c]

Originally posted by Aysedasi
MRI, I assume?

yep! recognize the location? the price? the bureaucracy?!

[BillandLara]

Originally posted by PascaLM
Yes !
Here are some informations about the speed traps :
For general information (in french only):

here
They are permanent :"radars fixes"
or mobile :"radars mobiles"
900 (!) "radars" will be on place between 2004 and 2005.
Here is the radars map.

Calais, Rouen looks an even better bet when you look a the "Fixee" sites , bit of a sod to have one at each end of the Le Mans motorway. The map of mobile ones shows them concentrated across the whole of the "English route" as well as the rest of the country. Never mind, thanks PascaLM for posting this.

[Paddy_NL]

Aysedasi>>

I have driven enough in France with lorries and trailers (so 55 mph max) to have seen enough Frenchmen drive even faster than the faster foreigners. Especially on the A-roads they can drive like there's no tomorrow.

But you're right, it's just a shame that strickter rules are implemented all around Europe and they're getting worse by the day. It's just nice every now and then on an occasional base to put your foot down, even though it's inresponsible (that's what you're trying to say, don't you?). Normally my maximum speed on a motorway 'ticks' the 100-mark, but sometimes I go beyond if traffic allows me to. I like to call it 'responsible speeding', even though I'm aware that doesn't really exists.

I bumped into another nice press-release, which will not be that important to LeMans-visitors from the UK., but maybe to others:

Wednesday 7 January 2004

* Belgium announces that they will be extra strict towards drivers speeding. As of the 1. March fines will have to be paid on the spot, or the car will have to be left behind. The fines will be enormous, according to the newspaper and can run up to 2750 Euro. Belgium already had
the highest fines in Europe but apparently the chance to be trapped in a speeding control was limited. The new traffic law will have to make it all chance. The main goal is to bring down the number of casualties in traffic, which is twice as high as for instance, the Netherlands.

Anyway, way too far off-topic with the above...
Does anybody know when those French will release confirmation of campingplaces? They told me in October they would release end of December or beginning of January, but I read somewhere that could be delayed untill April?