Pretty much everything the driver needs to know for speedy and safe journeys through France is available in real time, and even – sometimes – in English.

*Work in progress*

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Photo N85 Route Napoleon, Grasse-Grenoble, @DriveEurope

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Weather:

MeteoFrance has alerts on extreme weather events (amber + red) or Meteoalarm for neighbouring countries and the rest of Europe.

Vinci Autoroutes has a handy real time weather map matched up to the entire road network.

Traffic:

BisonFute is the national traffic website. Also has a handy jam calendar of the busiest days. Vinci publishes great animations of expected traffic flows – select the date you want then play for an hour-by-hour prediction of traffic levels.

All the motorway companies have their own traffic sites (see Vinci and Sanef) and twitter feeds (Vinci and Sanef). @TRAFvacances pulls all this together for holiday traffic but is (simple) French only.

Radio channel 107.7fm also has (auto-translated) traffic info in English, via @AutorouteINFO.

Webcams:

Autoroutes.fr is the motorway operators’ association with a map of webcams (and another traffic hotspot map).

See here for the A51 at La Saulce, the road between Gap and Aix-en-Provence, the major way into the Alps from the south coast. Check out conditions in the Massif Central.

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Last updated 18:00GMT, Thursday 19 February.

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TODAY: earlier thick fog around France, from south west to north, with visibility much less than 100m in places (Poitiers, Marce, Tours). Black ice warning Limoges area.

SNOW: on-going ‘snow chaos’ (mandatory chains) in Istanbul and parts west, central + south Turkey (record breaking snow says Hurriyet) + Cyprus, too.

NEWS: Roll-Royce spells out the future of ferry design, powered by LNG. Frustrated or distracted drivers have meant a large rise in red light jumping in Belgium. Contracts are signed on Crimea’s controversial Kerch Bridge. 

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CHANNEL DELAYS: DFDS Dover-Calais delay increased to 3h00. P&O Dover-Calais services ‘within 25mins of schedule’. MyFerryLink Dover-Calais delay 45mins. Condor Ferries, bad weather tomorrow (Friday 20 February) afternoon/evening, Jersey cut from fast ferry schedule. Eurotunnel car shuttle France, delay border control 30mins.

WEATHER ALERT: no red or amber alerts currently.

WEATHER: dry. Windy but mild Scandinavia. Rain France/Spain.

GOTTHARD TUNNEL: no queues.

MONT BLANC TUNNEL: ‘traffic is fluent’.

MAJOR TRAFFIC DELAYS: A3 westbound into Regensburg, accident, lanes closed, delay 45mins. A96 northbound to Memmingen, accident Wangen delay 50mins.

Earlier: now no delay A2 northbound into Maastricht. A3 northbound from Cologne, Leverkusen earlier accident, delay down to 20mins. A86 ring north Paris anticlockwise, road works, delay down to 20mins. A28 eastbound Amersfoort, earlier accident, delay down to 15mins. A40 eastbound Essen, road works, delay down to 10mins. A1 eastbound to Zurich, accidents Solothurn + Harkingen total delay down to 15mins.

See Travel/Traffic/Weather for more.

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Spain consolidates impressive road safety record with a new openness on speed cameras, among many other things. Much more later, or see below for a preview. Photo @DriveEurope

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Marine engine supplier Rolls-Royce sees the market for ferries splitting two ways and has designed a pair of concept ships to illustrate its ideas. Clear Blue (above right) is a no-frills minimalist vessel designed to cut upfront investment. Roll-on, roll-off truck trailers double as galley stores and fuel tanks with pre-fab, modular cabins and shops easy-installed on top of the superstructure to minimise construction costs and a single no-ramp entry/exit for vehicles. Meanwhile, Dynamic Blue emphasises passenger comfort with services, shopping and stairs all on the port side and a glazed roof covering the public deck to maximise light and the feeling of space. Powered by different versions of Roll-Royce’s clean fuel Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) powered Bergen engines, the company says the designs cut energy use by 15-25%.

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roundup: BELGIUM. Bods are unable to come up with a consistent explanation about the sudden large rise in red light jumping: up 10,000 last year to 99,000 incidents says Deredactie.be. Police say drivers are becoming more careless; the Belgian Institute for Road Safety (BIVV) says drivers are frustrated with growing jams. Meanwhile, newly introduced successive speed traps – so-called ‘speedcontroles’, where fixed cameras are supplemented with mobile traps – netted 27,000 drivers last year says FlanderNews.be. SPAIN. The tolerance of speeding radars is being made uniform across the country announces roads directorate DGT (via @DGTes). For speeds up to 100kmh the allowance is 7kmh; above that drivers are allowed 7% (i.e. for the new national speed limit of 130kmh, drivers will not be prosecuted at or under 139.1kmh). DGT also says the location of mobile speed cameras will from now on be published on its website and all cameras, fixed and mobile, will be made clearly visible, with warnings, to drivers reports El Pais. CRIMEA. The construction contract for the Kerch Bridge between Crimea and the Russian mainland – what will be the only direct, fixed link between the two – has been signed reports Crimea News Agency. First use is scheduled for December 2018 with completion on 30 June 2019. The budget is RUB247bn (2.6bn).

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UK Border Force is confident new Exit Checks will be ready for the go live date after Easter despite a new delay and on-going issues with coach parties. Operators refuse to comment.

Also, the Neige et Glace Rally was aptly named this year. A new Rhine ferry will help relieve congestion during the emergency renovation of the Mainz-Wiesbaden bridge as a bridge in central Warsaw succumbs to intense flames and farmers blockade major roads into the capital, again. A surcharge will be added to Swiss fuel prices to pay for roads maintenance. Work starts on the important North Sofia Bypass next week.

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EXIT CHECKS ’BIG BANG’ ON 8 APRIL

Put back a week to avoid Easter weekend. Still problems with coaches. Operators refuse to answer questions on trials.

In what could be very good news for passengers heading off for Easter, the introduction of new Exit Checks at UK ports has been put back until Wednesday 8 April.

Almost all cross-Channel passengers leaving the UK will have their identities verified from that date under a new ‘count them in, count them out’ immigration policy from the Coalition government.

It had been intended to start on 1 April but has been delayed until after the busy Easter weekend at the request of the cross-Channel operators.

The breakneck development of the systems has played out at the UK parliament’s Home Affairs Select Committee.

Operators – who are responsible for collecting the information – told MPs last November they were very concerned about being ready in time.

However, the Director General of UK Border Force Sir Charles Montgomery said at a follow up session last week, ‘In the same way I am very confident the Border Force will pay its role in being absolutely ready for 8 April to go live I am also confident the port operators will be ready to do their part in the programme as well.’

Port of Dover is understood to have conducted exit check trials in January. Eurotunnel has carried out two trials so far, most recently last Friday when passengers at the UK terminal faced a consistent thirty minute delay. It is not clear if that was caused by the trial.

Neither Port of Dover nor Eurotunnel answered repeated requests for information this week.

The outstanding issue is coach parties. Ministers apparently decided within the past few weeks to exempt coach parties of children under the age of sixteen.

Sir Charles said, ‘The coach sector is the most difficult of all, logistically. That has been the focus of trials and tests at each of the major ports which operate coach travel. The trials are still underway, they are continuing to refine and change practice to make sure the regime works as smoothly as possible. I’m confident we will have a solution come the go live date.’

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The Neige et Glace Rally 2015 – through the Jura mountains in the Doubs, east France, finishing in Pontarlier – was aptly named this year. More at Zaniroli.com

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roundup: WIESBADEN-MAINZ. From tomorrow (19 February) a new car ferry will run across the Rhine between Walluf and Budenheim, a few miles west of Wiesbden/Mainz, to relieve congestion during the emergency renovation of the A643 Schiersteiner Bridge reports ADAC. An extra ferry will also ply Bingen-Rudesheim, further west. Traffic has not been too bad in general since the Shiersteiner Bridge shut suddenly last week – after the road way fell 30cm overnight – though this morning, and last Friday, delays were more than 45mins on the A60 eastbound into Mainz from first thing. POLAND. At the same time, drivers in central Warsaw face weeks if not months of inconvenience after a massive fire on the Lazienkowski Bridge on Saturday melted the tarmac and buckled the supports reports NewPolandExpress.pl. Wooden planks stored underneath apparently caught fire which spread to nearby wooden scaffolding. Arson has not been ruled out. Meanwhile, major roads into the capital were blocked again today – for the third Wednesday in a row – by angry farmers. The long-running dispute on a number of issues is yet to be resolved. Further blockades are possible. SWITZERLAND. Following the government’s failed bid to increase the price of the annual vignette to pay for road maintenance, Plan B – a ring-fenced fuel surcharge – has been approved by the cabinet says Swissinfo.ch. From 2018 the price of fuel will rise between 0.30-0.36CHF, less than the 0.45CHF initially proposed. The idea will be put to a referendum at a later date. BULGARIA. Construction on the Sofia Northern Speed Tangent (SNST) starts next Monday with the major part of the 16km road expected to be finished this year says Novinite.com. Also know as the Sofia North Bypass, the new road undercuts the existing Sofia Ring Road to connect the four motorways converging on the capital.

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The French government has forced through a new package of economic reforms including a German-style minimum wage rule for foreign truck drivers.

Also, the Hybrid Adventure reaches the Arctic Circle. Low oil prices have so far balanced out expensive new EU eco-fuel rules says a report. A Russian driver is fined for letting the dog ride without a seatbelt. A truck driver has 700 litres of fuel stolen in Luxembourg.

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FRANCE: NEW MINIMUM WAGE RULE FOR FOREIGN TRUCK DRIVERS

Also pushing for new EU Agency on freight transport.

All truck drivers working in France must be paid at least the national minimum wage, currently €9.61 per hour. More later. Graphic via @France24_en, France24.com/en

In a move widely interpreted to put pressure on the European Commission to tackle ‘social dumping’, France will introduce a German-style minimum wage rule for all truck drivers working on its territory.

The new measure is part of a controversial package of economic reforms forced through by the French government this evening (Tuesday).

Precise details are sketchy, including the date from when it will apply.

The government said in a statement, ‘Any driver engaged in cabotage operations during international transport, will benefit from the social rules and the minimum wage in France. Foreign carriers, who work in France without providing the required certification, will be prosecuted for illegal work.’

It adds that Alain Vidal, Secretary of State for Transport, Sea and Fisheries, will ‘continue to promote, within the European institutions and other Member States, a European Agency for Coordination of Controls in Road Freight Transport’.

Politics means the new law – called the Macron Act after the economy minister – could be voted down, along with the French government, but that is thought highly unlikely.

French transport unions have welcomed the new measure though they are also pushing for the European Commission to ‘redefine’ cabotage rules which govern how much work foreign firms are able to undertake in other member states, currently limited to three jobs within seven days.

Germany also introduced a minimum wage rule for foreign truck drivers on 1 January 2015 but subsequently suspended the requirement for transit drivers pending an EU inquiry.

The French national minimum age is €9.61 per hour.

The European Commission defines ‘social dumping’ as, ‘where foreign firms undercut local providers with lower labour standards’.

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They made it: after ten days, the mad people towing an Airstream caravan to the Arctic Circle – behind a Range Rover Sport Hybrid, hence #HybridAdventure –  have arrived, having survived icy roads, sub-zero temperatures and, not least, the terrific, full-blown force 10-12 Hurricane Ole.

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roundup: RUSSIA. A woman in Surgut, Western Siberia, refused to pay a 500RUB ($8) fine for allowing her Staffie dog to ride in the front seat as, she says, no such law exists reports TASS news agency. Police say the fine is due to unsecured ‘luggage’ rather than pets needing seatbelts per se. LUXEMBOURG. A truck driver returned to his vehicle in Bettembourg after a weekend away to find the radio, mattress, two batteries and 700 litres of fuel had been stolen reports Wort.lu. CROSSING THE CHANNEL. Low oil prices have so far insulated operators from the increased costs of the new EU low-sulphur directive says a report from Drewery Shipping Consultants (via ShippingWatch.com). Fares had been expected to rise by up to thirty percent when the new rules came in on 1 January.

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A shorter and quicker alternative to the congested A43 Lyon-Chambery came up during Saturday’s winter getaway.

Also, a roundup of French road news, from the alarming latest road safety figures to a new front in the motorway toll row and a new portal to track speeding fines.

And, a Gibraltar car is impounded over single packet of cigarettes as impressive annual crossing stats are revealed. Progress on the second Minsk ring road, and a roundup of other road building, as the Belarus road toll network is set to almost double.

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JAM-DODGING A43 LYON-CHAMBERY

Faster, quicker back road to beat busiest stretch of winter sports motorway.

D1505 Amberieu-Chambery, as recommended by @TRAFvacances. Photo Wikipedia.

While traffic jams reached nowhere near the levels feared on Saturday, as skiers made their way en masse to the Alps, delays were nevertheless considerable on the A43 Lyon-Chambery.

With the possible exception of the N90 to Moutiers, this part of the A43 is reliably the busiest stretch on peak days during the winter holidays.

Interestingly, at the height of the congestion late morning, official holiday traffic advisory service @TRAFvacances advised drivers to divert from J8 A42 onto the D1504 from Amberieu.

We’re alive to handy alternative routes to avoid the worst holiday jams @DriveEurope so we checked it out: it’s not only shorter than the traditional route but quicker too.

It does depend on turning off the A6 at Macon onto the A40 (then the A42 at Druillat), rather than heading into Lyon to pick up the A43.

A40 – ‘Autoroute des Titans’ – gets pretty busy too, but normally less so than A43, and the worst stretch is between Nantua and Bellegarde, after the A42 junction eastbound.

Meanwhile, D1504 from Amberieu is just 52 miles to Chambery compared with 87 miles by motorway and at 1h20 – all things being equal – it’s ten minutes quicker too.

The only apparent issue is that D1504 is single lane… potentially even more vulnerable to big delays than the A43 should the worst happen, on icy winter roads, but certainly worth bearing in mind.

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France road news roundup:

Road safety: a further rise of 12% in road deaths in January – mainly among drivers, cyclists and pedestrians – is alarming. Figures released last month showed accident fatalities increased by 3.7% in 2014 compared to the year before though, overall, 2012-2014 road deaths fell by 7.25%. Next month’s figures will be watched more keenly than ever.

Road tolls: kerfuffle on Friday when former minister Corinne Lepage called on drivers to claim a 20% refund on tolls from the oldest motorways saying users should not be still contributing to construction costs. The operators were particularly upset when current Finance Minister Michel Sapin endorsed the move despite the conciliatory tone adopted by President Francois Hollande last weekend in the on-going row over toll charges.

Speeding fines: it won’t be much use to regular drivers until cross-border prosecution starts in May 2017 but those who rent cars might find a new government portal to track speeding fines very handy (via ConnexionFrance.com).

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More great road art from Polish roads directorate @GDDKiA, this time of national road 61 across Zegrze Reservoir, dammed off the River Narew, a popular weekender twenty miles north of Warsaw. 61 heads 257km north east through the Masurian (Mazurskie) Lake District to Augustow near the Lithuania/Kaliningrad/Belarus border.

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roundup: GIBRALTAR. A single packet of cigarettes found in the glove box saw a woman’s car apparently impounded by Spanish frontier guards. After a complaint to Guardia Civil headquarters in Algeciras the car was returned reports TheOlivePress.es. Spain maintains the enhanced checks which have dogged those crossing the frontier on and off for the past few years are designed to tackle cigarette smuggling. Major delays have not been seen for some months. Last week the Gibraltar Borders Agency (@GibraltarBorder) revealed that 2.7m vehicles crossed the land frontier in 2014 while 61,194 commercial vehicles used the dedicated Eastgate. BELARUS. The 44km northern section of the second Minsk Ring Road – between the M6 to Grodno/Poland and M3 Vitebsk – will open this year says Belta News Agency. The south west stretch between M6 and M1 to Brest is scheduled to open 1 January 2017. Meanwhile, the BelToll.by electronic road toll system will expand to 2000km by 2020 from 1189km now. This year 300km will be added including the newly renovated section of M5 Zhlobin-Gomel, the four-lane sections P23 Minsk-Mikashevichi and P21 Vitebsk-Russia. The remaining stretch of M5 Minsk-Gomel, Babruysk-Zhlobin, is expected to be ready next year. Work is also due to start on renovating M6 Minsk-Grodno/Poland says Belta.

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The German autobahn network is straining at the seams says the ADAC as it names the A8 to Karlsruhe as the country’s most congested motorway.

Drivers are warned about a speeding fine goldmine on the A50 near Arnhem. Bulgaria will build a motorway to the Danube Romania border, and finish off some important others by October, and move to pay as you go road tolls. Shockingly few Portuguese drivers lose their licences.

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RECORD TRAFFIC JAMS IN GERMANY

Autobahn network ‘reaching capacity’ says ADAC in call for more work on bottlenecks.

The total length of traffic jams in Germany reached almost a million kilometres in 2014.

According to motoring club ADAC, 475,000 separate jams generated 960,000km of tailbacks last year, a new record (compared to 415,000 and 830,000km in 2013). The rise is attributed as much to improved detection of jams as a sudden increase in traffic.

The most congested roads were in Nord Rhein Westphalia in the west and Baden Wurttemburg and Bavaria in the south.

ADAC says, ‘Our current analysis demonstrates that the German motorway network is reaching its capacity limits. Considerable work is needed to remove bottlenecks.’

By far the heaviest traffic was in Nord Rhein Westphalia, especially to and from Cologne. Taking 30% of all jams, NRW accounted for five times the amount of congestion as the three entire states in the east.

The most congested road was the east-west A8 in the south – particularly the eastbound stretch Karlsruhe-Stuttgart (currently undergoing extensive remodelling) – closely followed by the southbound A3 Oberhausen-Cologne and southbound A1 Cologne-Euskirchen. 

The busiest month is October. The busiest day is Friday. The quietest is Saturday (except, in our experience, at peak holiday times).

Like most other developed countries Germany struggles with an under-maintained, mature road network. The by now oft-quoted statistics say up to half of all bridges, twenty percent of motorways and forty percent of main roads are in need of repair.

Spending has been constrained by the Credit Crunch and political imperatives to cut the budget deficit and not increase tax on drivers.

Recent initiatives like the ‘foreigner toll’ and an expansion of the truck toll network, with revenues earmarked for road maintenance, are not expected to raise enough to plug the gap.

Also: French environment minister Segolene Royale may have dismissed the notion that wood burning stoves contributed to the Paris pollution crises as ‘ridiculous’ – and immediately overturned a ban – but over in Germany they take the idea much more seriously. While a report today from the Federal Environment Agency (UBA) found that nitrogen oxide levels from traffic exceeded EU thresholds at half of monitoring stations, the UBA president told Euractiv, ‘Emissions from wood-fired heating systems have begun to generate more particulate than exhausts in highway traffic.’

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It’s Rally Sweden this weekend, in and around Karlstad at the top of Lake Vanern in the south. Worldly readers might recognise those as Norwegian flags. That’s because the first day special stage three (SS3) crosses the Norwegian border, and back. See more at RallySweden.com or follow @RallySweden

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roundup: NETHERLANDS. More than 19,000 speeding fines have been handed out during the renovation of the A50 motorway bridge over the Waal near Ewijk between Arnhem and Eindhoven reports DutchNews.nl. The temporary limit is 90kmh over the 2.5km stretch. BULGARIA will build a motorway rather than expressway between the Romanian border at Ruse and Veliko Tarnovo says Novinite.com. Ruse is home to the Danube bridge one of only two fixed crossings along the 290 mile river border between the two countries. The 110km road, a busy trade route, is expected to be funded by a mix of EU grants and EIB loans and will be ready by 2020 says SofiaGlobe.com. Meanwhile, the inbuild sections of the Struma Highway – all, that is, except the sensitive stretch through the Kresna Gorge – between Sofia and the Greece border, and the Maritsa Highway between Sofia and Turkey, will open in October it was announced today. Bulgaria has also signed an agreement with the World Bank to replace its vignette toll system with pay as you go road charges reports Novinite.com. PORTUGAL. Just 41 drivers have had their licences confiscated in the past four years says ThePortugalNews.com (nearly 12,000 are in the last chance saloon however). This is all set to change however with a new points-based system expected to be revealed in March.

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HERO’s Classic Rally shines a light on the surprisingly little-visited south of Italy aka ‘Mezzogiorno’.

Also, MEPS vote for cross-border traffic fines (see more). The EU draws attention to its also little known 112 pan-Europe emergency phone number. The Schiersteiner Bridge between Mainz and Wiesbaden dropped 30cm overnight; it could be closed for a while. It looks like Helsinki and Tallinn will get a Chunnel-style railway tunnel after all. Another body from the Norman Atlantic ferry disaster is found in Corfu.

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VENTURING SOUTH OF ROME

HERO’S Classic Rally opens up the ‘largely tourist free’ south of Italy.

Monte del Matese, photo @HERO_CRA

Figures published last year said only 13% of tourists in Italy venture south of Rome.

That doesn’t make southern Italy – ‘Mezzogiorno’ – a wasteland exactly.

Fifteen percent of 50m annual visitors is still 7.5m people but most of them flock to hotspots like Sicily, Naples, Pompeii and the Amalfi Coast.

One writer describes the rest of the region as ‘largely vacationer-free’.

The Historic Endurance Rally Organisation echoes that phrase in describing many of the roads on its Classic Rally, announced this week for June.

It starts in the Roman city of Lecce, right on the heel of Italy, before heading even further south to Otranto, on the divide between the Adriatic and Ionian Seas.

The route then heads north, eventually to Brescia up near Milan, via the east coast and across the mountains along the spine of Italy.

Highlights include the round, stone trulli houses of the Valle d’Itria, Matera with its ancient Sassi UNESCO World Heritage Site old town, and the ‘fantastic’ roads across the Monti del Matese (above).

Otherwise, committed petrolheads should check out Porsche’s recently acquired Nardo Ring, less than 20 miles from Lecce. It’s not open to the public but is so close to the coast that beachgoers relax to the sound of high performance engines pounding round the banked, eight mile oval.

Sybarites might like the late Lord MacAlpine’s famous ‘B&B’, Il Convento di Santa Maria di Constaninopoli, half an hour from Lecce. It ain’t cheap, and dinner no longer includes access to the wine cellar, but there are no telephones or TV.

Rome is 1,000 miles from Calais – and Lecce another 340 miles on – or about three easy days, via the Alps.

For more info see RearViewMirror.tv’s adventures in southern Italy, or Alex Polizzi’s Secret Italy episodes four and five on Campania and Calabria.

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It’s European 112 Day to raise awareness of the emergency 112 phone number available anywhere in the EU. Callers can expect to speak to someone in any of Europe’s major languages. A survey last year found that less than 50% of people had heard of the service. This year the Commission says there is ‘significant room for improvement’ in making use of smartphone location services to minimise response times. Even some Western European countries are surprisingly tardy.

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roundup: GERMANY. A 20cm wide crack which opened up overnight on the main A643 Schiersteiner Bridge over the Rhine between Mainz and Wiesbaden west of Frankfurt saw the roadway drop by 30cm. The bridge was immediately shut, during rush hour, and the two cities engulfed in traffic gridlock which only finally cleared late morning. Engineers warn the bridge will be out of action for some weeks at least. Opened in 1962, Schiersteiner has in recent years been subject to four times its design load of 20,000 vehicles per day. Forty percent of Germany’s bridges are said to be in need of repair. FINLAND-ESTONIA. A fixed link across the Gulf of Finland is getting consistent airtime recently but it seems the balance is tipping in favour of a Chunnel-style railway tunnel. The 50km tunnel between Tallinn and Helsinki will cost between €9-13bn and open after 2030 says a new study commissioned by the two cities. The EU would be expected to stump up half the cost says Yle News. GREECE. The body of a middle aged woman washed up on a beach in Corfu last week is believed to be another victim of the Norman Atlantic ferry disaster on 28 December last year. It brings the death toll to eleven with another seventeen passengers still unaccounted for reports Ekathimerini.

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MEPs debate the revised directive on cross-border traffic fines and hear doubts about the enforcement regime.

Also, Mercedes’ off-road van impresses in Sweden. Romania will build more motorways after all. Brittany Ferries unveils the new name for its new no-frills boat.

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HALF A MILLION BRITS DODGE FRENCH SPEEDING FINES

EU debate on cross-border fines also hears doubts on procedure for dealing with non-payers.

Updated below with result of vote.

Half a million British drivers get away with speeding fines in France each year an MEP claimed today.

London Labour MEP Lucy Anderson was speaking in a European Parliament debate on the revised directive ‘Cross-border exchange of information on road safety related traffic offences’.

Anderson said, ‘There are some very extreme examples both ways of how this has worked out. On the London ring road, people going twice the speed limit in foreign registered vehicles and not being caught. Similarly if you look at the French figures, 500,000 people in UK registered cars getting away with speeding offences every single year.’

Oft quoted statistics say 25% of speeding offences in France are committed by foreign drivers rising to 50% during the summer months.

The vote tomorrow is expected to be overwhelmingly in favour of adopting the new rules which will see drivers fined at home for eight traffic offences committed in other EU (and EEA) countries.

The offences include speeding, not wearing a seatbelt, failing to stop at red lights, driving whilst drunk or on drugs, using a forbidden lane or using a mobile phone while driving.

However, several MEPs expressed concerns over the enforcement of the fines.

German MEP Ismail Ertug said, ‘When you commit an offence you can be written to directly. The question is what happens after that? We’ve not actually got to the point of paying the fine. What about the situation where the person who commits the offence refuses to pay the fine? What happens then?’

In reply, the European Commission’s Transport Commissioner Violeta Bulc said the procedure for non-payment of fines would be included in the review of the new rules due next year.

At the same time, the Commission will examine common standards for checking equipment and whether to include additional offences or harmonise traffic rules.

The UK, Ireland and Denmark have until May 2017 to adopt the law. Other EU countries were covered in the original directive which came into force in November 2013, twenty two of which have so far implemented the cross-border fines rules.

Countries known not to have done so include Bulgaria, Cyprus and Slovenia.

The European Transport Safety Council has compiled a handy FAQ on cross-border fines.

Update 11 February: as expected, MEPs voted in favour of cross-border traffic fines at a session of the European Parliament this lunchtime. 640 MEPs voted for, 61 against with 6 abstentions.

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During winter testing in Sweden, Mercedes boasts its new Vito 4×4 can go anywhere.

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roundup: ROMANIA. A revised transport master plan has upgraded 645km of expressway into full highway after public consultation reports the Independent Balkan News Agency. The previous plan published at the end of last year included virtually no motorways in favour of cheaper, quicker and easier to build dual carriageways. One of the upgraded sections is the all-important Sibiu-Pitesti trans-Carpathian road linking Bucharest and Western Europe. CROSSING THE CHANNEL. Brittany Ferries has named its new ‘economie’ ship Baie de Seine after the bay in northern France between Le Havre and Caen at the estuary of the Seine river. The former DFDS Sirena Seaways will double the number of highly popular no-frills sailings between the UK, France and Spain from May.

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It might seem strange that Francois Hollande headed straight from negotiating the Ukraine Crisis to ‘open’ a very short stretch of autoroute in central France at the weekend, but he had important business to discuss with the motorway operators.

Also, Paris officially unveils measures to tackle the next pollution crisis. The Netherland starts the first autonomous truck trials. The EU invests in an interoperable fast charging network for electric cars. Portugal is the latest country to see fuel price hikes. The Georgian Military Road shuts again but the A-67 to Santander is definitely open.

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FRENCH GOVERNMENT AND AUTOROUTE OPERATORS MAKE UP OVER A89

President Hollande flies in from Moscow to open the final stretch of Lyon to Bordeaux motorway.

Francois Hollande and Vinci Autoroutes’ Pierre Coppey at the opening of A89 on Saturday. Photo @Elysee

After discussions with Vladimir Putin about the Ukraine Crisis in Moscow on Friday, German chancellor Angela Merkel flew straight to the Munich Security Conference.

Meanwhile, her partner in the negotiations – French president Francois Hollande – headed for Correze in south central France to open a motorway.

There was however slightly more to the event than just cutting the ribbon on the missing 4.5km link in the A89.

Also attending was Pierre Coppey, deputy CEO of Vinci Autoroutes which will run the completed A89. He is also president of ASFA, the motorway operators’ group.

The government and operators are currently involved in a heated row over the level of road tolls, and the profits made by the operating companies.

At the end January Prime Minister Manuel Valls unexpectedly froze a rise in the tolls due on 1 February. Last week, ASFA filed an appeal.

Speaking on Saturday, Hollande said, ‘The solution cannot be in litigation but in the comprehensive, definitive management of highways, in the long term.

I think in the coming days we will find the conclusion to this process.’

For his part, Coppey tweeted last night (Sunday), ‘Operators are ready to sign a contract of trust and take their share of responsibility.’

A89 is France’s first full length east-west motorway stretching 505km (314 miles) between Bordeaux and Lyon via Perigueux and Clermont Ferrand.

It is described as both the ‘Autoroutes of the Presidents’ because it passes through the former fiefdoms of Jacques Chirac and Valery Giscard d’Estaing – Hollande too was first elected in the Correze – and ‘The Transeuropean’ because eventually it will link Eastern Europe with the Atlantic.

The irony of Hollande’s flying visit is that the stretch of A89 in question is not open to traffic yet. After final snagging, it should see the first vehicles in early April.

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The thoroughly-previewed vehicle restrictions to prevent a re-run of the ‘Paris Pollution ‘’Crisis’’ were presented to the Conseil de Paris this morning by Mayor Anne Hidalgo. Measures now confirmed include progressive bans on vehicles based on four new emissions classes, 1-4 Star. From 1 July this year coaches and trucks first registered before October 2001 (1 Star) will be barred from entering the area inside the Boulevard Peripherqiue during the day and at the weekends. As of the same date in 2016, cars first registered before January 1997 – and bikes before June 2000 – will be excluded. At the same time, ‘ultra-low emission routes’ could be established across the city. From 2017 older vehicles will be gradually banned – and the low emission zone potentially widened – such that by 2020, only heavy vehicles registered after October 2009, cars after January 2011 and bikes after June 2015 will be allowed. There is also €1.7bn in incentives available to persuade businesses and individuals to switch to cleaner vehicles.

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roundup: NETHERLANDS. After announcing law changes to allow for autonomous vehicle trials at the end of January, the first ‘platoon’ truck convoy took to the A28 from the Scania plant at Zwolle this afternoon (Monday). The lead truck was able to control acceleration, braking and maintain the distance between the vehicles via automatic ‘electronic coupling’ (pretty much everything except steering). Drivers remained in each cab, able to take back control on demand. The Netherlands is hoping to champion platooning when it assumes the EU presidency in January 2016. Three other pilot schemes are due to be approved. Germany and Sweden are working on similar projects. ELECTRIC VEHICLES. €4m of EU money goes towards a project developing a network of 155 open access, interoperable fast chargers on major roads between Sweden (35), Denmark (23), the Netherlands (30) and Germany (67). Studies due to complete by December 2015. FUEL. Portugal is the latest country to hike prices following Denmark, Luxembourg and Hungary last week. Both unleaded95 and diesel rise by 5c per litre to average €1.44 and €1.26 respectively says ThePortugalNews.com. See more European fuel prices at Fuel-Prices-Europe.info. SPAIN. The A-67 Santander-Palencia road has definitely re-opened after shutting last Wednesday during the snow storm. @Charlie_Chica81 (Charlotte Jessop) drove north to south this afternoon and reports ‘lots of snow around but nothing on the roads and fab blue skies’. Meanwhile, GEORGIA’s former ‘Military Road’, along the Dariali Goreg to Russia, washed away twice last year by landslides, is closed again, this time by avalanche. It is currently open only as far as Gudauri-Kobi says Trend News Agency and unlikely to fully re-open for the next ten days.

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