Speeding Ticket from Spain

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I thought our tickets for Assen MotoGP arrived today. However, despite the letter clearly coming from Netherlands, it was in fact a speeding fine from Spain!

The date of the offence was 15th June 2018 (when we were indeed in or around Barcelona, hurrying to get to Free Practice to the Catalan MotoGP), date of "initiation of the procedure" was 5th December 2018. Date of letter is 22nd January 2019. 111km/h in a 90 km/h limit apparently. Seems entirely feasible.

My surprise is how long it has taken for them to send it out. I believe in the UK the police have to send the NIP within 14 days of the offence. A very quick Google search suggests other EU countries have varying timescales - 3 months in Germany, up to 360 days in Italy - but I can't find the specifics for Spain. Does anyone know?

Anyway, I have paid the E50 fine as I doubt I'd get away with it and it goes up to E100 if you don't pay it promptly. As I hope and expect to return to Spain, and on the same bike, it seems worth it to avoid any potential problems next time.

So the point is this - if you've been to Spain, you can't relax about possible speeding fines until many months later!
 
Not sure Brexit will (or should) affect it. I broke the law in Spain and even if they can't touch me here, when I next go to Spain I am sure they will feel able to follow up on this. I'd be very annoyed if Spanish drivers could flout our rules, get caught on camera doing it and be untouchable if/when they subsequently return.

£45 to remove the potential to be stopped, questioned, impounded etc seems like reasonable value to me. I realise that the Spanish police probably have bigger fish to fry and there won't be an APB out looking for my bike, but if I get stopped for something entirely coincidental, it could create a whole load of problems.

And, when it comes down to it, I was caught speeding so don't feel I have any moral grounds to refuse to pay the fine.
 
Not sure Brexit will (or should) affect it. I broke the law in Spain and even if they can't touch me here, when I next go to Spain I am sure they will feel able to follow up on this. I'd be very annoyed if Spanish drivers could flout our rules, get caught on camera doing it and be untouchable if/when they subsequently return.

£45 to remove the potential to be stopped, questioned, impounded etc seems like reasonable value to me. I realise that the Spanish police probably have bigger fish to fry and there won't be an APB out looking for my bike, but if I get stopped for something entirely coincidental, it could create a whole load of problems.

And, when it comes down to it, I was caught speeding so don't feel I have any moral grounds to refuse to pay the fine.



Far too reasonable. Coming on here with that sort of attitude and behaving like a normal human being could lead to at least a temporary ban. Tread carefully :beerjug:
 
Knowing how shite our Govt are, I can imagine this aspect of being a part of Europe will stay in place. :blast

Indeed, we will have all the disadvantages of being in, and all the disadvantages of being out.

As for the £45 tourist tax I would pay it, had a couple from Luxembourg in 2017, they took about 3 months to arrive.
 
Great attitude Sir :thumb2

You’ve also had several months to save up to pay the fine . Imagine if it had come a a few weeks or so after your return and you’d still got to pay your credit card bill for the trip too , that would be a bummer :p

We got done in Holland on the way home 13 yrs ago and it was around 300+ euros each on the spot fine . That really put a downer on the holiday :(
 
Not sure Brexit will (or should) affect it. I broke the law in Spain and even if they can't touch me here

About 4 or 5 of us got one last June on the last day of our tour and I'm pretty sure the covering letter said that they used the services of a UK recovery company to enforce the fine.

I and the others paid up too.

Whether this will change, no idea.
 
As an update, I attempted to pay online yesterday and all seemed to go well right up until he final page - where it looks like you normally get confirmation - when a strange message about not accepting cookies appeared. So I have no idea whether or not I've paid. Don't want to pay twice as I'd NEVER get it back. But don't want the period to pay 50% to elapse either.

Bank says payment wa authorised but has not yet been taken. Whatever that means.

I've emailed the fines people to ask if it's been paid, and await a substantive response...
 
About 4 or 5 of us got one last June on the last day of our tour and I'm pretty sure the covering letter said that they used the services of a UK recovery company to enforce the fine.

I and the others paid up too.

Whether this will change, no idea.

I believe the "UK-based company" bit relates to accessing your details from the DVLA website. I don't think they actually pursue you for the fine. But I could be wrong.
 
You should have chucked it in the bin, bikermate style, ranting at the audacity of the Spanish, the perfidious nature of the British authorities at releasing your personal data to a third party (who’ll now doubtless sell the information, bringing you a whole world of pain) and the inability to find a hotel in Folkestone.

You’d have felt better.
 
You should have chucked it in the bin, bikermate style, ranting at the audacity of the Spanish, the perfidious nature of the British authorities at releasing your personal data to a third party (who’ll now doubtless sell the information, bringing you a whole world of pain) and the inability to find a hotel in Folkestone.

You’d have felt better.

My main fear is that this might be the first of many tickets. We were in Spain for two weeks (give or take) and the date of this ticket was right in the middle. There were one or two occasions after that when I KNOW I was going faster. But each day that passes without another register post letter is another day closer to freedom! Have our Spanish chums forgotten the Armada?

Anything that might make me feel better would be very welcome at the moment. I'm wasting away while I wait for next doc's appt and, spurred on by the optimistic but erroneous view that "I'm ill anyway so how could it get worse?" has a wisdom tooth hammered out yesterday. Good gracious. Feels like I've been kicked in the jaw by an angry horse.
 
If I may impart the limited wisdom I have on this matter. Leaving aside the the emotive subject of the rights and wrongs of positioning, uses and abuses of these traffic cameras, there are a few simple general rules and tips to follow when riding in Spain.

I stress the word general because, obviously, they aren't foolproof; you can be unlucky. But let's face it, the idea is to mitigate the bad luck as far as possible.

HEADS UP:

You will always see a warning sign before a FIXED camera. It may be a mile, it may be two miles betwen sign and camera but the point is it tells you that there is one. This I have no problem with; it's fair warning and it generally looks like the picture below.

GENERAL RULES AND COMMON SENSE:

1) Don't go fast on long straights; stick to under 150kms/hr. The fine is €100 and no points (deducted - in Spain, added in UK).

2) If you are going to break the speed limits, keep it to no more than +30km/hr (+20 at lower speeds) on straights especially.

3) Always, always, always slow down and stick to the limits in towns and villages because that is where the majority of the mobile ones are, especially at the entrance. Be especially suspicious if there is a bend as you enter the urban areas and expect a 50km/h limit mostly. Another good reason is general population dangers; dogs, kids and idiots who refuse to look before they cross at a zebra crossing thinking that it is their God given right to cross come what may.

4) Be suspicious of cars parked on the side of roads. Althought they have moved on from this system mostly, to mobile tripod style cameras which are almost impossible to detect unless a) you know what you're looking for, b) you are eagle eyed or not watching the road as you should. They are not allowed to attach the cameras to guardrails but they do. Last I heard there are only 60 in the whole country.

5) A great many tunnels, especially in urban areas, have cameras in them and they are not always marked. In Valencia and Madrid, I believe they all do now. The ones on the A8 in the north don't all have them but some will.

6) They use helicopters. Very difficult to see because their focus range is large but I always look in my mirrors and all around, especially if it's a clear, calm day and they are out in force during key times of year when there is a mass exodus such as 1st, 15th & 301st of July and August as well as Easter and any BH that gives a long weekend.

HOT TIPS:

1) Gorged roads such as the ones you might get in hilly areas, you are very unlikely to get speedtraps of any sort. There is not room for them on the hard shoulder; fixed ones on poles pose more of a danger and cars don't fit. Tripods don't work in those situations either; they need straight bits. Helicopters are not used on gorged roads either for obvious reasons.

2) Other twisties such as on the plains generally don't have them either. There are not the staff and they don't plant themselves more than 3k from the nearest cafeteria in the middle of nowhere.

3) They generally don't sit on the hard shoulder on bends or anything quite so stupid, but they may on bends on the way into towns but not on 100/90km/h roads. Again, for safety.

4) an early lunch and on the road between 1 - 4 is a sweet spot because there is much less traffic and it's lunch time even for the Guardia Civil.

Hope this all helps.

It may all seem like common sense but hopefully some of you might find a gem or two in there.

Ride safe.
 

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Good info, thanks.

One question: there is always a sign before a fixed speed camera, but is there always a camera after a sign? I recall seeing loads of those signs and made sure I was riding within the limit (not quite always, obviously!) but do they have 'dummy' signs?
 
Good info, thanks.

One question: there is always a sign before a fixed speed camera, but is there always a camera after a sign? I recall seeing loads of those signs and made sure I was riding within the limit (not quite always, obviously!) but do they have 'dummy' signs?

No, but I'd hang my hat on 90% of the time there are. A couple I can think of on the A8, for instance, do not. Most of the tunnels will have the same sign as the one below but only a very few actually have the cameras for real.

Two more things:

In Asturias there are a couple of radar cars which all the taxi drivers know about. I shall text my taxi driver mate and see if he can enlighten me and will post on here for what it's worth. This is just going to have to be one of those "bad luck' ones. There are only 2-3 of these anyway. If you stick to my advice of not going above 150km/hr then the worst you will get on the A8 is a €100 fine.

Lastly, if you have a TT rider, the camera updates come free. Make sure that you have traffic cameras for Spain loaded on it before you go. It's not a given. They are pretty good. I don't know about the NAV/Garmin but for half the price of one single low level fine, the subscription pays for for itself several times over. Well worth it in my opinion but in the case of the Garmin, make sure that it includes Spain.
 

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No, no, no

HOT TIPS:

1) Buy a 200hp supercharged Kawasaki and ride it like Arsey!:D

There, NOW it's fixed.

On a serious note :rolleyes:

Gonna start a thread about a fab APP my Taxi driver friend just recommended to me because I think it could do with a wider audience.
 


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