It is situated about two-thirds of the way along the tunnel just leaving Moûtiers in the direction of Albertville. It is situated on the left, hidden in a little service road (the *******!), it will flash at anything over 89kms. Has caught 46,000 offenders in less than a year.

 

The Moûtiers speed camera
Thanks to Ferg at Ski Deep for the pic

 

Chambery

There are also 2 camera on the A43 past Chambery. They are situated at the exits of 2 of the 3 tunnels - Named The Dulling and The Pine. More on this Mat Hardy:

"I did the Lyon run again today and managed to get a snap of what I think is the camera in one of the Chambery tunnels - see below, I assume its a camera, it points at the back of the cars and looks a bit like the Moûtiers one!  It's in the Tunnel Sleepiness which is the 3.2km one before Chambery coming from Lyon in a service area on the right".

Chambery Tunnel Camera - thanks to Mat Hardy

 

Mat also tells us that he was caught on the viaduct between Moûtiers and Albertville where the speed limit is reduced from 110 to 90 km/h. It appears to have some fixed point cameras along it that can record speed, Matt was pulled over by 2 motorbike cops who appeared from a side road and escorted him off - they said that he'd been done about 2km previously by a camera.  So we assume they sit in the side road and have some way of monitoring the fixed cameras and can do people who zoom through the 90 bit... Unlucky Mat.

 

Cruseilles (between Annecy and Geneva)

This little beauty went in during August 2004, just after Cruseilles you turn left to Geneva, hit a bit of dual carriageway, floor it, come to a right hand bend (where speed limit drops to 70 km/h) and it jumps out on you - very hard to spot and impossible to slow down if you don't have advance warning.

 

Thanks to Ferg at Ski Deep for the pics

 

Swiss Cameras

There are also some new sneaky Swiss speed cameras hidden in bollards. More on this at the excellent pistonheads website ('cos speed matters! - we couldn't agree more). Take care in the 100km/h limit between the tunnels on the way to Geneva Airport - I've been done by the cameras there, they do work!

 

Swiss bollard camera from Niccolo Pini

 

Other Speed Traps

Beware of mobile cameras near McDonalds in Albertville, anywhere along Lake Annecy and all the villages where the speed limit drops straight down to 50km/h.

 

Another trick of the French police is to check times on Autoroutes between the tolls by checking your ticket time. Not sure how widespread this is, but be aware if there are police hanging around toll booths. This may be an urban myth however - does anyone have any proof this really happens? We don't know of anyone who has definitely been caught like this.

 

Note that the Reims to Calais Autoroute is a popular place for the French Police to pull over or use mobile cameras on the many UK registered cars that use this stretch of road.

 

 

The Fine

If only caught by a camera and no police are involved at the scene then English registered cars are very unlikely to be chased for the fine.

 

French and Swiss hire cars though beware - the hire companies simply pay the fine and charge your credit card (plus an admin fee) in most cases. I have got off with it before though and even though the hire car company supplied Swiss Police with my UK address they didn't really try to hard to get the fine off me.

 

There have been reports recently though that EC countries may in the future "share" there points and drivers caught in France could have points added to their licence in the UK. As of Dec 2008 this still does NOT happen.

 

In May 2008 I was caught at 74km/h in a 50km/h limit. Was fined €95 on the spot (they take you to a cash point if you've no money on you by the way....).

 

Some legal experts say that it would be too costly to chase the money across the channel though - that's why they resort to on the spot fines (whilst French and Swiss drivers get clean away with it in the UK).

 

 

Page last updated 29/12/08