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...