Tony F Dordogne

Kevin, sort of down to you really, sorry especially if your thread is read in conjunction with another there is running here atm, hope Mark reads this also! Ernie, it's not the logic of it, it's just the law.  Basically Kevin, as Clair said, if you're banned here for more than a month and you want to drive in France again, you have to have the medical.  At that speed you can expect a hefty fine and a further ban.  If you get a replacement licence from the DVLA and decide to drive again in France during your period of banning and get another pull, expect to spend a few nights in a cell and a visit to court to explain yourself and the loss of your bike or car. And as said above you were very lucky not to have your vehicle confiscated or at least impounded and regardless of what other bikers who are regular users here may say, get caught here, the police have much greater powers to immediately take you off the road.  And the reason that the G man was making such a fuss about you to people in the street is that there is a large crackdown on bikers this year because of the number of deaths and injuries that they receive and cause, wrong place, wrong time and for sure, wrong speed. A salutory lesson for other bikers I think.

I've got some experience of this tho second hand having guided several people through this sort of thing over the past couple of years. You must have been going way over the limit to have been hit with such a large fine and an immediate ban, usually a ban is no more than a month and the court case is organised round that date. Your ban is NOT instead of the court case, that's just to keep you off the road because your speed was held to be dangerous.  I would imagine that the Gendarmes took your UK licence off you so you now have to get a replacement from the DVLA - you MUST tell them the circumstances under which it was lost, it won't make it any more difficult to get a replacement but if you just say you lost it, you commit an offence. No, you can't be compelled to return for the case but as said above, you loose your bond.  And, if you don't attend, you can expect a hefty fine, even be jailed in your absence.  That may not mean too much to you but remember, all your details of future visits to France are recorded - as they are now, plenty of comments about that on this Forum - and if you don't appear, pay your fine etc, you can expect to be arrested if you ever get stopped and checked when visiting France again. There is for sure a system to have your details on the French national police computer so if you get caught again, expect to be arrested if you don't pay your fine.

Well said Ernie and Cathy.  Mark, if you're for real then you're a braggart and a prat and to be honest, if you kill yourself, you bloody well deserve it.  Obviously you don't care about the consequences of you driving that fast in the event of you having an accident and if you do think about it, you're an uncaring and stupid man. If you're just trying to wind people up in here, why don't you get a life and go elsewhere to do it. Edited for content:  Mark, just an afterthought, if you drive that fast in the UK - and how silly is it to come into a public forum and ask whether you will face sactions for breaking the law in the UK and then telling people how you will do it - I'm sure that you will be doing the same either locally or driving through France.  I wouldn't worry about whether you'll get flashed in the UK, you've given enough information on here about your post code and the type of bike you drive to enable people who are concerned about road safety in 24 to be able to have a quiet word with your local gendarme brigade before you have an accident which may involve somebody locally.

Things are moving along well in the background with lots of developments on how to deal with the DWP/ExpoTeam.  For anybody who is trying to get DLA/AA/CA and is having problems with the DWP/ExpoTeam and who haven't yet signed up to the dedicated web site, the link is: http://dla-ecj.weebly.com

Your house or somebody elses, that could put a whole new slant on things?

Relatively short time in the job so must have done something before that, may have some skills but sounds like just another disgruntled copper looking for a way out.  I'd stay where I was and try to improve things if I were him, far too easy to think of France as a quick and easy win when we all know, no matter what our income stream, it's not quite like that all the time.

I agree with BobT, I use the Rocket brand screws from Weldom, buy in bulk and they're excellent, they also do a non rust type if you want to use them outside.  As for other disposables, I just buy as I go, accumulate points/money on the various fidelity cards and then use them when I have a big purchase.

Will you have E121s, E108s etc, that will give you some cover and you'll need top up assurance for sure so you may well have some cover.

I have a diagram/scematic from a French gardening magazine that explains all this in detail. Email me if you want a copy.

And of course, if you have UK fittings there have been sories on here over the years, both first-hand and anecdotal, about the problems that vendors face when they try to sell their houses with UK fittings and wiring, though obviously some people may have got away with it. If you ever come to sell your French house, be aware that you may have to spend out again to make everything French legal.

The age of this woman and the fact that she's a granny means nothing in the grand plan. The only information that we really have is her interview (a poor me interview, a poor lost lamb in the great legal system) and a couple of comments about how unfair the international warrant system is, we really don't know the circumstances, whether her original defence was a lie, why the appeal court overturned the lower court's judgement etc etc.  And there's nothing mentioned about any co-defendant she may have had and what happened to him or her. She says that the French legal system didn't inform her of the appeal but we have no evidence to prove that either way and that she's totally confused about everything.  Bottom line is that the appeal court obviously thought that her original defence didn't hold water and that she was guilty. Where would you draw the line?  She had enough drugs on her to warrant being charged and convicted.  So she's still wanted for the offence and is facing 6 years in prison but doing her time may upset her family.  Well, that's tough but the French obviously thought that she was guilty and should pay the price, such is life. Perhaps there needs to be a statute of limitations on international arrest warrants but for what crimes - manslaughter, theft, drug dealing (which is seems she was convicted of or having drugs with intent to supply)?  Unless there's some gross miscarriage of justice involved in this case, she's been found guilty and should have served her sentence, the fact that she hasn't so far means very little and the best thing she could do is get herself a good French lawyer and try to resolve the situation rather than giving what to me seems like an appeal for sympathy and publicity for her case via the BBC or anywhere else.

[quote user="fandango"]Try Family Search, the website of the Mormon church, they have a vast amount of data and it is free. Free BMD is also a great site for UK births,deaths and marriages and as its title suggests is also free! Good hunting! Fandango[/quote] One of the main problems with Family Search is the accuracy of the information sent in by their correspondents.  Whilst it is good for very general basic information, anybody using it should also cross-check the information that is published online because it IS (and the Mormons accept this figure) only 60% accurate.  Many of the correspondents can't even properly transcribe the printed material that they use, often without the author or copyright holder's permission and that is becoming a major issue for many research groups. If you do get a reference from FS, it's always good just to use the other on-line sources to double check what they've written. None of the professional genealogists I know use this as a primary source and I don't for sure. And I use Family Tree Maker, pay for it, because of all its facilities AND its book facility which allows  you to publish your reults in a good format.

It will be interesting to see how long that takes to get back to the ECJ and whether the DWP/ExpoTeam designate any outstanding mobility element claims as in abayence as they are supposed to though they evidently 'forgot' to do so with the October 2007 case.  Let's wait to see just how long it takes them to get their heads round this one.

I've been using this system for the past 3.5 years, never had a problem with it at all, all you need to do is to make sure that the people at the hospital sign and stamp the soin de transporte and send in the calculation form.

Do you have a Notaire involved here anywhere yet?  I would have thought that because of the detailed legal questions that you're asking, you should really speak to a legal expert about this, if people here give you the wrong information - and it has been known to happen - you have no redress, at least with a Notaire you can always go back to him/her.

[quote user="Russethouse"] [quote user="Tony F Dordogne"] And also hope that the DWP don't extend their benefit fraud office from Spain to France .[/quote] I thought the DWP had recently started working in Spain and had already uncovered fraud there ? I saw something on 'Breakfast' a few weeks ago [/quote] My point exactly and with so much emphasis on this from the UK Government at the moment together with the French push against having to pay for social and medical costs for the fit inactives, it doesn't take much to work out that this sort of imaginative thinking could cause real trouble for the imaginative thinkers.  Come to think of it, didn't we broadly have these conversations about 18 months ago when the French brought in their new restrictions?

And also hope that the DWP don't extend their benefit fraud office from Spain to France or that a neighbour doesn't put two and two together and report you either to the French or the UK authorites.

[quote user="ErnieY"]Just for the record, whilst I may indeed have a couple of small beers or a glass of wine whilst driving I do not get drunk nor do I drive drunk or condone it [/quote] Sorry Ernie, to state the blindingly obvious you do drink and drive, you just hope that your minimal consumption doesn't put you over the legal limit.  Surely this isn't a debate about being drunk and driving but about drinking and driving?

It's not perverse at all, it's the law and that's all there is to it.  If you're so drunk that you have to sleep it off in the back of the car, it's likely to be 24 hours before you're actually legally able to drive.  So you wake up, still well over the limit but feeling better and decide to drive away when you're still over the limit. You were suggesting that people can change their mind and 'succumb' in some way.  My point is that there is absolutely no need to change your mind, nor is there any need to have any alcohol with a meal, nice it may be and at home when not driving, not a problem at all, but it's not essential to have it.  All you have to do is to say "no" and there's never any question about your sobriety.

Ernie, I'm no paragon of virtue and making snide comments like you have is just silly.  It's easy if you're a grown up making grown up decisions, you just decline, say no, make it clear you don't want to drink - trust me on this, I do it every day, did it when with friends for lunch and supper all day on Thursday, was out with J for a very nice celebratoty dinner last evening where she drank wine and I didn't, it's very easy and if you give in, you deserve to be nicked whether you have the keys or are driving.  If you're so weak as to not be able to say no, unless somebody is holding you down and pouring the wine into your mouth, at some stage you have decided to change your mind if you then have a drink and it's then down to you, wholly and totally, don't blame the vaguaries of the law or have a pop at SD because you aren't adult enough to make a serious decision and then stick to it.

AFAIK, in 24 if you get stopped and you're over the limit it's an immediate 3 month ban, higher over the limit can mean a longer ban, it's up to the Prefecteur.  And of course, there's the fine/fines. 

I recall a couple of years ago that the French educational authorities clamped down on the wearing of religious symbols (including headscarves by Muslim girls) in state schools and a similar discussion ensued but the ban was enforced and the world didn't come to an end. To me, when clerics who are wholly male, that are no female-clerics in Islam that have any visibility as far as I can see, dictate what women can and can't wear, it's a step too far.  When places like Afghanistan still have men throwing acid in the faces of women who refuse to wear the burqa, even going as far as killing women who don't wear them, denying female children the right to schooling and education etc etc, in middle eastern countries where women aren't allowed out without their husband's permission or are refused the 'right' to drive a car, where 'honour killings' are still practiced and female genetalia is still mutilated no matter what international law says, it's a religion going far too far. To me, Islam is not a religion which has equality between the genders and until it does across the board, no matter which part of Islam a person may belong to, and where men and women do have equality of rights, views and access, this is always going to be a difficult discussion. Where women wear the burqa and they say that they want to, I wonder whether that's because they have been sort of brainwashed into that view of the world. My own view is that so much of social interaction is based on facial recognition, expression etc and basic face recognition, the veil totally goes against that basic psychological frame of reference.  The headscarf is slightly different because you can see the face but again, how much of that is male dictat and how much is truly what a woman may want?

Back in the 1970s I arrested a doctor under S.6 of the 1960 RTA for being drunk in charge as he was on the ground by the side of his car, drunk as a skunk with his car keys in his hand.  He had every intention of driving his car but was so p****d he'd more or less passed out before he could actually get into it but I wasn't going to take a chance. Yes, in France you can be nicked for something similar but my understanding is that if you're on a camp site in a mobile home and settled in for the night, the G men tend to assume it's like your nest for the night and you're not going anywhere - being pragmatic, if you've paid for the stay in advance, it's unlikely that you'll be driving off. But the latest DiC attack here, especially now the new brigade members have been drafted in for the summer which always means more roadside checks, is the morning after drivers who are still over the limit after a night's sleep, whether you're driving a car or a mobile home thingy.  So if you've had too much the night before and you're over the limit when you set off the next day, in 24 if you get stopped and tested, prepare to loose your licence if you're still over the limit.

Sue, I have blood tests regularly (usually monthly unless it's urgent, then fortnightly) and the main number the docs/specialist worry about is the haematocrite number.  As already said, certain blood disorders which throw a low haematocrite number may/can indicate something like anaemia.  For me, it's a high haematocrite that is the problem.  The blood gets thicker and as the blood carries oxygen to the various parts of the body, especially the lungs, it helps athletes/cyclists metabolise the oxygen in higher volumes - the downside is that an untreated or undiagnosed persistantly high reading can also lead to stroke and heart attack so even when my blood numbers are a drug-induced ok, I still have to take large numbers of drugs to prevent strokes and heart attacks. The norm is in the range 38 to 52.  My target reading is 45 and higher than that causes me problems, it means my spleen, which is about 10 times larger than it should be, is really overactive.  Last but one reading was 48.5 but last time, three weeks later, it was just 43.9. The causes can be many and varied but unless there is a clinical diagnosis of a problem, the high reading can, and according to the various experts I've seen in the past 20 odd years is, often but not exclusively caused by diet.  Too much red meat of any kind, too much wine, all sorts of contributing external factors, even stress, can cause a high reading but if it's back to normal on a second test, it's just one of those things.

In south London they probably nicked the expression, the original was on a Peter Sellers LP back whenever.  Unlike the people from north of the river who I'm sure you'll agree have always been more cultured and who kept their coal in the coal cellar or the coal shed, rather than in the bath as those south of the river did.