jeudi, septembre 29, 2011

contrôle de papiers

A random little anecdote... in France the police are allowed to ask for your papers for no reason. I've never had anyone ask for them on the street (it's not often you see cops asking a young, blond woman for her papers...) But you'll often see the police at a roundabout where they will randomly pick cars to ask for their papers (pink slip (carte grise), driver's license and insurance). I've never been singled out but yesterday as I was driving out of Caen I got the wave and pulled over. Happy that I had all of my papers on me (and didn't leave my carte grise in another purse etc...) I handed everything over.

Then the cop took me by surprise, "So you have a new license?"

Awww crap. I forgot that I have never put the "A" on the back of my car and you can get a fine for not having one.

So I pulled my American smile out and explained that the Prefecture "told me" that even though I already had my American license they were required to put the date on the back of my French license because I only just passed it here but that "they said" I wasn't required to put the "A" on the back of the car. I handed over my American license.

He asked a lot of questions about my American license, why the date when I passed my license wasn't written on there, why it expires etc... Then he said that he was just curious, that it wasn't a problem :)

I looked it up and according to the different fines and loss of points I would have been required to pay 150 euros! Eeep!

So the moral of the story, always have your American license on you just in case!

Oh, and ladies, make sure it's a nice warm day with a low cut tank top...

5 commentaires:

Ksam a dit…

C & I were just talking about this the other day with Jenny & Olivier (Jenny will have to put the A on in Normandy too) - and it's actually only an 11€ fine and no points lost.

If you look closely at your link, it says 150€ is the MAXIMUM they can fine you for that infraction, ie lets say you started insulting the cop and making a fuss, etc then the judge could increase it up to 150€. But most of the time (as long as you're nice & polite), they'll just let you go with a warning since it's such a small amount.

Hopefully that reassures you a bit for the next time. (but low-cut tops never hurt lol). ;)

MilkJam a dit…

that makes more sense!!!! in my head I thought it was around 20 euros so when I saw 150 my jaw dropped!

thanks for clarifying that :) and tell Jenny not to bother :)

Megan a dit…

lucky break. What "they said" at the prefecture is always a good excuse though.

Anonyme a dit…

Did you show them your nice new shiny rench ID card?!! xx

MilkJam a dit…

Emmy - no! I don't have mine yet (and don't carry my passport around...) so it's good they are not interested in immigration otherwise it would have been a whole other can of worms...