Serious Brexit question

[Lance]

asking for a friend

My friend has a speeding fine from France. He has just over a month to pay the reduced fee.
If we delay Breixt or leave with may's deal then he'd best just pay.

If we leave with no deal I'm not sure whether to pay.
Is anyone aware of any cotingency plans that, in the event of a no deal exit, would make a speeding fine enforceable?
Or does international law set any precendent?

[Maslins]

I can't guarantee the truth of this story, may be an old wive's tale but...a friend of a friend apparently got a speeding ticket in the US once. They decided to ignore it, came back to the UK, heard nothing more, thought nothing more about it. A few years later they went back to the US, and upon their passport being scanned at customs they got called to one side. What was a modest cost speeding ticket was now a vastly higher sum due to interest, late payment costs, missed court fees etc.

May not be true...but it scared me enough that when I got a speeding ticket in the US (only had one worldwide, including the UK, and it was there) I paid it.

Is "your friend" confident that they'll never want to go to France again?

[meridian]

As far as I can tell, it’s not international law but a European directive on information sharing of vehicle owners and keepers.

As it’s a directive and not a regulation, it needed to be written into law in each country. I’ve only done a cursory search but it looks like it was written into U.K. statute sometime around 2015 or a bit later.

So, regardless of how we Brexit, the information sharing will remain on our statutes until it is removed.

[meridian]

What was a modest cost speeding ticket was now a vastly higher sum due to interest, late payment costs, missed court fees etc.

Happened to me once in a different country. Got a ticket, left the country, went back a couple of years later, found out that there was a warrant for my arrest.

Turns out that unpaid tickets go to court, the court orders payment, failing to pay then becomes contempt of court, court automatically issues warrant for arrest.

It was easily resolved by going to the police station and throwing money at them to pay anything outstanding. Seems that it happens often enough that the warrant is enough to scare people into paying.

[Lance]

I hadn't considered the 'return to the country and get busted' factor.
Although the V5 for my, ahem, my friends car has a massive misspelling so would be hard to tie it into me.
Especially as no passport checks were performed in France as the port of entry was Zeebrugge.
So that's probably a very low risk.

The UK statute makes the decision though, especially as it's only 45EUR.

Thanks.

[northernladuk]

If you think in this day and age of data you can break the law in another country and just leave thinking it'll just disappear then you need your head examining, particularly Europe and even more so the US.

[Lance]

If you think in this day and age of data you can break the law in another country and just leave thinking it'll just disappear then you need your head examining, particularly Europe and even more so the US.

Indeed.
Similar for the £39b that's owed. Difficult to see how that can be avoided ever.

My question was more academic though as 45EUR isn't worth even thinking about it.

I'm still collecting the full set. There's only 1 european country I've driven in and not had a speeding fine yet.
Point of note. Speeding in a Swiss tunnel is far more expensive than any other I've had.