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Breathalysers again


Hereford
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We are travelling to the Uk later this month via the tunnel. Yesterday we had an email message from them regarding the fact that we will be travelling at a busy time. Part of the email reads:

" In-car breathalyser

On 1 July 2012, a new legislation came into force in France. All

drivers of a motorised land vehicle, excluding mopeds, must possess a

digital breathalyser or an unused (and immediately available)

breathalyser kit which conforms to NF standards. This rule equally

applies to vehicles registered outside France. Only vehicles fitted with

Breathalyser Interlocks are excluded. Failure to carry a breathalyser

in your vehicle will NOT incur a fine.

Be fully prepared. Call into the AA travelshop, in our Folkestone Passenger Terminal Building, for all compulsory or recommended car equipment required for driving abroad."

Well: we have the kits but we thought that the law had not been promulgated. Good way to sell unwanted items though.  In any case we are travelling from Calais...

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Why would they !

Only the French could transform what was a daft and pointless law in the first place into a ridiculous 'non law', I mean how you can possibly make a law which says that you 'must' do something but then attach absolutely no penalty for not doing it, exactly how is that a law ?

I reckon the situation as it stands is a sop to Sarkos mate at Contralco who must have invested mega bucks in ramping up production in order to supply the untold millions of the wretched devices which original (mis)conceived law would have seen sold year on year but then saw it evaporate virtually in the blink of an eye.

Ho ho ho

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Only they werent able to ramp up production to a situation that they themselves engineered  so it wasnt even a case of reacting to a changing market, they had a massive head start on all the competition but in typical fashion even that wasnt enough, all the delays to the law were because the french manufacturer could not meet the demand that it had created.
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[quote user="Hereford"]We are travelling to the Uk later this month via the tunnel. Yesterday we had an email message from them regarding the fact that we will be travelling at a busy time. Part of the email reads:

" In-car breathalyser

On 1 July 2012, a new legislation came into force in France. All drivers of a motorised land vehicle, excluding mopeds, must possess a digital breathalyser or an unused (and immediately available) breathalyser kit which conforms to NF standards. This rule equally applies to vehicles registered outside France. Only vehicles fitted with Breathalyser Interlocks are excluded. Failure to carry a breathalyser in your vehicle will NOT incur a fine.

Be fully prepared. Call into the AA travelshop, in our Folkestone Passenger Terminal Building, for all compulsory or recommended car equipment required for driving abroad."


Well: we have the kits but we thought that the law had not been promulgated. Good way to sell unwanted items though.  In any case we are travelling from Calais...[/quote]

Just got the same email as you from Eurotunnel. However, when I looked at the French version of the email - look lower down in the email - there was an important difference in the French translation of the section you quote above:

[quote]Sachez qu'à défaut de présentation d'un éthylotest, le conducteur ne peut pas être sanctionné. (Décret n° 2013-180 du 28 février 2013 modifiant l'article R 233-1 du Code de la route) [/quote]

Hmmm ... bit sneaky that, eh?

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[quote]It was actually there just not visible to a speed reader like myself. Failure to carry a breathalyser in your vehicle will NOT incur a fine.[/quote] Well, I'll go to the foot of our stairs! I did not see that AT ALL! Too wrapped up in condemning Eurotunnel!
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This is from a post on another forum of which Cooperlola was a member:

Despite the above discussion and repeated confirmation from my colleagues in France, I have just see the outside REAR COVER of this weeks Le Mans Special AUTOSPORT magazine.

Full page advertisement jointly from Alcosense and Halfords stating that "You'll need one of these by law".

So ripping people off is still part of the national sport in the UK.

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  • 3 weeks later...
The last couple of times I have been in the UK I have visited Halfords. Still prominently displayed next to the check outs are alco-testers with all sorts of warning of the requirement to have them in France. Are they committing some sort of misrepresentation?
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[quote user="Louise-Gary"]The last couple of times I have been in the UK I have visited Halfords. Still prominently displayed next to the check outs are alco-testers with all sorts of warning of the requirement to have them in France. Are they committing some sort of misrepresentation?[/quote]

Well, you ARE still required to have one, so if that's what they are saying, then I suppose they are just being ... let's say ... "economical with the truth", as evidently they AREN'T telling you that there is no fine for NOT having one ...
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