A convoy of British supercars – a pair of Porsche 911 GT3s, a Lamborghini Gallardo LP 570-4 Spyder and two others – was nabbed by the French police recently at ‘tres grand vitesse – very high speed’. The cars were pulled over at the southbound exit of the Peage de la Negresse on the A63 near Bayonne, within 35km of the Spanish border (having presumably driven the length of France). All photos @Gendarmerie

Bad luck or poor judgement, you decide, but it does serve to highlight a common belief – known as ‘the Peage Problem’ – that police time drivers between toll booths. It’s wrong. In order for it to be true, they would have to monitor the computers of the – privately owned – motorway operators in real time, and be ready to instantly catch transgressors as their tickets are stamped at the booths. It’s just not feasible.

If you don’t believe that simple logic, read what the Sunday Times wrote on the subject last year, or consider the hand-wringing debate about privacy in France due to new terror surveillance laws. Police do stop drivers at toll booths – having clocked them earlier – because it is easier and safer to do so.

The only consolation in this case is that the drivers couldn’t have been going that fast or the cars would have been confiscated (of which there is no mention). As it is their licences were almost certainly taken away, to be returned weeks or months later via the British Embassy in Paris and the DVLA.