Driving across Bosnia-Herzegovina in May 2012, Livno-Sarajevo-Zvornik.

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Driving across Finland, Helsinki to Haparanda in pictures.

460 miles. See map below.

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Also see Race around the Baltic P1 and Driving down Sweden’s east coast.

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Eurotunnel is not happy about the latest ruling by the Competition authorities.

Also, it’s Park(ing) Day in France. Yesterday’s German ‘blitz marathon’ anti-speeding campaign turned out to be a family affair. Poland dominates international haulage according to new figures. The DFDS firestarter gets eleven years. New breath test barriers in Stockholm prevent drink driving passengers, and a new You Tube channel about cars and roads from Harry Metcalfe.

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DARK HINTS FROM EUROTUNNEL ON MYFERRYLINK FUTURE

‘Reflecting on the possibility of continuing to support the activity’.

Eurotunnel appears to be tiring of the legal battle surrounding the MyFerryLink case.

Yesterday, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) confirmed its restated decision to bar MyFerryLink from Dover after considering submissions from all the operators involved.

That decision is already subject to another appeal at the Competition Appeals Tribunal, currently scheduled for 24-25 November.

In a statement Eurotunnel says, ‘This position confirms in Groupe Eurotunnel’s opinion the unalterable determination of the CMA to bring to an end the activities of MyFerryLink.

As such, and under the hypothesis that the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) simply remits its judgement to the CMA, as it did in December 2013, Groupe Eurotunnel would have to reflect on the possibility of continuing to support the activity. The order published today could weigh heavily on the forthcoming annual contract negotiations between MyFerryLink and the major cross-Channel freight transporters…

Groupe Eurotunnel strongly regrets the position that the CMA holds and its inevitable consequences.’

Eurotunnel did not immediately respond to a request for comment but a spokesman did tell @DriveEurope in March the company could cut its losses if the legal saga continued.

Meanwhile, MyFerryLink tells Travel Weekly it will continue to fight the case. Any order would not come into force until six months after a final decision.

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It’s Park(ing) Day today! Give a parking space a makeover then sit down for something to eat. Regular users will be delighted to have something so singular and dully practical transformed into something everybody can enjoy. Quid pro quo – help yourself to one of those sandwiches. Park(ing) Day is an annual event in towns and cities across France. See parkingday.fr

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roundup: GERMANY. School kids allowed to operate radar guns during yesterday’s 24 hour national ‘blitz marathon’ anti-speeding operation bagged a parent and a teacher reports thelocal.de. Speeds were monitored from 7,500 locations around the country. Full results to be announced later today; last year saw 83,000 drivers fined. HAULAGE. Germany has the biggest haulage industry in Europe – followed by Poland, Spain, France and the UK – but in international work Poland is top, more than twice as big as next placed Spain according to Michelin. Five other eastern European countries make up the top ten. NORTH SEA FIRE. The man who started a fire on board the DFDS Newcastle-Amsterdam ferry last December has been jailed for 11 years. Boden Hughes had previously attempted to argue that as the incident occurred on the high seas then no court had jurisdiction though that case was pretty smartly thrown out. ALCOHOL. Drivers disembarking ferries in Stockholm will have to give breath samples at the exit barriers. The trial is on-going at the Frihamnen harbour this autumn. A similar trial was carried out with truck drivers in Gothenburg which cut the incidence of drink driving down to one twentieth of what it had been previously says Sveriges Radio. The system is automatic with a reusable mouthpiece that does not touch the lips.

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New YouTube channel from @HarryM_Evo – founder editor of Evo magazine, now working with Jaguar Land Rover Special Vehicle Operations – featuring the cars in his eclectic collection (Lamborghini Espada, Series 1 Land Rover Defender, Lotus Elan, Ferrari 550 Barchetta, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc), some of his favourite events and – best of all from our point of view – the best roads he knows. Check out the launch vid below:

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Bosnia steals a march on some of its Balkan neighbours by linking to the European motorway network, at least in part.

Also, toll charges should fall says the French Competition Authority. Hungarian police stop a 22 year old unlicenced driver at the wheel of a 40 tonne truck. Rogue traffic cops are being brought to book in Denmark.

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THE FAST ROAD TO MEDJUGORJE

Bosnia linked to European road network for the first time.

Corridor 5c to Medjugorje. Photo via JPAutoceste.ba

It might be only 10km long but the brand new stretch of motorway from the Croatian border to Medjugorje means a part of Bosnia and Herzegovina is connected to the European road network for the first time.

That’s more than you can say for Balkan neighbours like Romania and Bulgaria, see below.

Since 1981 when a group of teenagers claimed to have seen the Virgin Mary, Medjugorje has grown to be Europe’s third biggest Catholic pilgrimage site, after the Vatican and Lourdes, with more than a million visitors each year.

It’s situated in the majority ethnic-Croatian Herzegovina region of southern Bosnia-Herzegovina, just a few miles north from the port of Ploce, between Split and Dubrovnik, and connects directly to the Croatian A1.

The new road forms the southernmost part of Corridor 5c which will run between Budapest and the Adriatic.

Progress on 5c has been slow but determined in Bosnia since it was the subject of an infamous US government Wikileaks cable in 2010 ‘The Road Not Travelled’.

Currently just 60km is open between Sarajevo and Zenica in the north of the country. However the section between Sarajevo and Tarcin to the southwest is about to open while several other tunnels in the north have been finished recently, on time and on budget.

The work is financed mainly by loans from the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).

Suddenly the finish date of 2020 for the entire 335km length through Bosnia, confirmed yesterday, looks realistic.

The respective presidents of Bosnian-entity Republika Srpska and Serbia met recently to discuss 5c on their territory.

Meanwhile, work on Romania’s motorway network has ground to halt in every sense. While the (otherwise impressive) government dithers about its priorities, the vital missing link on the Orastie-Sibiu highway, in the west, remains unfinished. According to Romania-Insider, the supplier is unpaid and buildings permits have not been issued. PM Ponta insists the road will open on time in November. A similar situation has arisen in Bulgaria with no work apparently on-going on the southernmost section of the Struma Highway, down to the Greek border from capital Sofia. The government is threatening to cancel the contract. The road is also said to be 3-4 months from completion. The deadlines are important because meeting them depends on Bulgaria’s ability to take up European funds.

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Pep Pladeveya sits inside his Seat 600 painted in Catalan national colours in George Square, Glasgow, last night. Pladeveya is one of a group of firemen to make the 2,000km drive from Gerona in north east Spain. ‘We’ve come to help the Scots and to tell the world that we Catalans want to vote. We live in a dictatorship and we want to vote like in Scotland,’ he told AFP. Photo @JamesMatthewSky

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roundup: FRANCE. The profits of highway operators are ‘excessive’ says the national Competition Authority (French only) in a new report, and must be regulated more in favour of the state and users. Noting that revenues continued throughout the financial crisis even as traffic declined, the report makes thirteen recommendations in all, including that the formula for calculating tolls should be based on traffic levels rather than index-linked, guaranteed increases. Thelocal.fr adds that things are unlikely to change until 2027 at the earliest however due to the terms of contracts negotiated in 2002, and that this is the second time an official report has called for tolls to be cut. It currently costs €82.10 in toll fees to drive one-way Calais-Avignon according to mappy.com. HUNGARY. A 22 year old man, unlicenced, was topped at the wheel of a 40 tonne truck during the recent TISPOL seatbelt campaign. Police describe the case as ‘unprecedented’. He was working for a subcontractor to a hypermarket group. He was however wearing a seatbelt. DENMARK. Ten foreign drivers from six European countries have allegedly fallen victim to a rogue traffic cop who took a patrol car out of hours and pocketed on-the-spot fines. A second officer has also been charged with a similar offence says Copenhagen Post. The incidents all occurred on Zealand island near Copenhagen earlier this year.

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Meanwhile, it’s fifty years to the day that Goldfinger went on general release in the UK. Here Sean Connery sits on the Furka Pass above Realp in south central Switzerland.

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Latest Crossing the Channel special offers: bikers heading for the Magny Cours Superbike festival in October can cross with MyFerryLink Dover-Calais from £35 each way. Book a short break with P&O Dover-Calais by this Thursday – 18 September – for travel before 17 October and get a free £5 beauty voucher and three day returns at £48, or five day returns for £56 (offer code 5BTVCH).

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The motorsport-loving proposed EU Climate & Energy Commissioner is expected to get a rough ride at his confirmation hearing in Brussels next month.

The Luxembourg PM lashes out at the German ‘foreigner toll’. An Austrian speed cop sets off a booby-trapped slurry bomb. Moscow vigilantes join the hunt for the GTA killers.

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PETROLHEAD POLITICIAN SET FOR ROUGH RIDE IN BRUSSELS HEARING

Sacrificial lamb or bold appointment for the new European Commission?

Miguel Arias Canete. Photo tiempodehoy.com

A man with a collection of classic British sports cars can’t be all bad, can he?

As well as an MGB 1800, Manuel Arias Canete – proposed European Commissioner for Climate & Energy – owns a 1965 Mini Cooper S and an unidentified Morgan, and as well as a 1972 Alfa Romeo GTV.

Before assuming high office in the Spanish government, Canete raced and rallied his cars at the events such as the Monte Carlo and Le Mans Classics.

If it was just a taste for motorsport then Canete might squeeze past the nomination hearings at the European Parliament next month. As it is he has a few other vulnerabilities that might bring him down, and the Juncker Commission with him.

Canete first came to international attention last May for saying, ‘Holding a debate with a woman is complicated, because showing intellectual superiority could be seen as sexist.’

As Spain’s Minister for Agriculture, Food and Environment from 2011-14 he was dogged with conflict of interest accusations due to his business interests.

He is married to a member of the Domecq family – as in the sherry – which also, among other things, breeds fighting bulls.

Until yesterday, Canete also owned shares in two oil companies.

The knives are certainly out in Brussels with even the Spanish socialists saying they will vote against his appointment.

In theory, the European Parliament cannot vote against individual candidates. Either all must be accepted or none. Previously however, undesirables have been quickly substituted and the whole line-up resubmitted.

The only other serious objection to Juncker’s Commission – apart from, possibly, the British candidate – is that there aren’t enough women. One wag suggests Juncker may be using Canete to kill two birds with one stone: as red meat to throw to a European Parliament desperate to assert its power then replacing him with a female candidate.

The official timetable is yet to be published but Canete is apparently set to face MEPs on 1 October.

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Click to enlarge, via @KGeorgievaEU

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roundup: LUXEMBOURG. ‘The [German foreigner] toll is contrary to the idea of Europe,’ said recently elected Prime Minister Xavier Bettel in Saarbrucken yesterday according to wort.lu. He later threatened to introduce a similar toll in Luxembourg though that was later denied by his spokesman in a rather long-winded discussion on Twitter. AUSTRIA. A booby trapped bucket of slurry exploded three metres from a traffic officer as he prepared to set up a speed trap in Molltal yesterday. RUSSIA. Vigilantes are now in on the hunt for the Grand Theft Auto Gang haunting Moscow’s M4 Don highway. The local Smotra street racing group, numbering about 150 men in 50 cars, some armed, have stepped in as police are unable to solve a case that has resulted in fourteen apparently motiveless murders since May. Smotra have been stopping and searching cars and warning drivers about the dangers of driving on M4 at night says RT.

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The Maserati Centennial celebration kicks off today in Bologna with a ‘World Gathering’. See maserati100.com, #Maserati100 or find the new, free smartphone app with event listings:

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Latest Crossing the Channel special offers: bikers heading for the Magny Cours Superbike festival in October can cross with MyFerryLink Dover-Calais from £35 each way. Book a short break with P&O Dover-Calais before this Thursday – 18 September – for travel before 17 October, and get a free £5 beauty voucher with three day returns at £48, or five day returns for £56 (offer code 5BTVCH).

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Voters in Sweden’s second city Gothenburg have rejected the congestion charge, introduced eighteen months ago, putting a wider infrastructure investment package at risk.

Meanwhile, voters in Geneva will decide whether to build a short cut tunnel under the lake. DFDS considers shutting another ferry route. The price of diesel falls in Luxembourg.

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GOTHENBURG REJECTS CONGESTION CHARGE

Big regional infrastructure investment now at risk. Close escape for foreign cars.

The (former) Gothenburg congestion zone. Photo via Transportstyrelsen.se

Progressive forces suffered a second setback in Sweden on Sunday.

On the same day the far right Sweden Democrats made historic gains in the General Election, citizens in Gothenburg voted down the city’s congestion charge.

Nearly sixty percent voted against. Polls taken throughout this year suggested public support for the congestion scheme was increasing.

The congestion zone started on 1 January 2013. Drivers were charged a maximum £6 per day in the city centre with evenings, weekends and the whole of July free.

The charge did not initially apply to foreign registered vehicles but plans were published recently to include them from 1 January 2015.

Traffic levels fell by 20% after the zone was introduced but the gains quickly declined. The latest survey showed traffic less than 7% down. Meanwhile, a group set up to fight the charge zone amassed nearly 90,000 signatures in a petition forcing the city council to hold a referendum on the zone.

A major infrastructure project in the region now hangs in the balance. The Vastsvenska Paketet – West Sweden Package – included a range of transport initiatives all funded by the charge.

The last minute row over an alleged funding gap for a new rail tunnel under the Gota Alv river in the city centre is said to have persuaded many to vote against.

Despite the result, the congestion zone can only be removed after a vote in the national parliament.

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Drivers crossing from one side of Geneva’s lake to the other have little choice but to take their chances on the busy Mont Blanc Bridge in the far western corner. Whether or not to build a tunnel short cut has been discussed since the 1960s; finally, on 28 September, citizens will have the chance to vote on the issue. Opponents say it’s too expensive, environmentally unfriendly and might even cause congestion as it pulls traffic through the city. Even supporters fear it might jeopardise another, longer tunnel project further up the lake which qualifies for federal funding. A vote in 1988 saw two thirds vote for a new lake crossing though a similar number rejected the plan in 1996.

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roundup: CROSSING THE CHANNEL. Ferry operator DFDS says it is considering closing its Portsmouth-Le Havre service. It would be the third DFDS route to close so far this year after Harwich-Esbjerg and two services to Spain from Poole (plus other routes between Ireland and Spain, and Spain and France). DFDS says the service has been uneconomic to run since 2005 despite various marketing initiatives and switching to a smaller ship. Brittany Ferries runs a summer service Portsmouth-Le Havre, May-September, with daily departures by fast ferry Thursday-Sunday. LUXEMBOURG. It’s already the cheapest fuel in Western Europe and the price is set to fall further. Diesel drops to €1.17 per litre today, down €0.012. Petrol remains the same – €1.335/l says FPE – as it is regulated at different intervals.

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It’s EU Mobility Week don’t you know… have you picked the right mode of transport today asks the @EU_Commission.

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Latest Crossing the Channel special offers: bikers heading for the Magny Cours Superbike festival in October can cross with MyFerryLink Dover-Calais from £35 each way. Book a short break with P&O Dover-Calais before this Thursday – 18 September – for travel before 17 October, and get a free £5 beauty voucher with three day returns at £48, or five day returns for £56 (offer code 5BTVCH).

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Wrong Way or Ghost Drivers are a big problem on Europe’s motorways. New in-car tech helps individual drivers but only better road-way warnings, or new roads, will solve the problem completely.

The new Austrian vignette goes on sale at the end of the month with prices rising by an average 2.1%. Delays expected on Alpine roads for the next two weekends during the annual cattle drives. Maserati’s Race To Modena reaches Moscow.

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NEW EFFORTS TO TACKLE WRONG WAY DRIVING

Geisterfahrer, Spookrijder and Conducteur Fantome haunting Europe’s motorways.

Mercedes’ new wrong way alert helps individual drivers but only better road way warnings – or new roads – will solve the problem entirely.

Wrong way driving is a serious problem in places on the Continent.

Rather than errant British drivers, overwhelmingly the issue is caused by mad, suicidal, dotty or drunk locals.

It is such an established phenomenon there are actually phrases for it: Geisterfahrer in German, Spookrijder in Dutch and Conducteur Fantome in French (all translating as Ghost Driver).

There are around 400 incidents each year in Belgium, for instance, and over 2,000 in Germany, more than seven a day. Ghost driver warnings are almost routine during radio traffic bulletins.

In serious cases the consequences can be catastrophic, particularly in delimited Germany, where 22 people died in wrong way driving incidents in 2013.

Last week the Luxembourg government said it was keeping a close eye on a recently announced German project to tackle Ghost Driving once and for all.

Currently the only preventative measure are the Stop Flasch no entry signs at the top of autobahn slip roads.

A number of solutions will be tried on a test stretch of motorway with the likely solution, according to reports, being a series of flashing lights activated by road way sensors. However, since Ghost Riders are not such a big issue in France, Holland or the UK, the root cause is likely to be road design.

Meanwhile, Mercedes has introduced wrong way warnings on its latest cars. The camera-activated traffic sign recognition system cross checks with the satnav to alert the driver with warning graphics and beeps. It will be rolled out across the rest of the range in due course but is so far is only available in Germany.

The one thing drivers who find themselves driving the wrong way should not do is attempt to turn round. The official advice is to switch on headlights and hazard lights and pull over onto the emergency lane.

For those facing a wrong way driver, the Belgian authorities advise to keep to the right hand lanes. Spookily, studies show Ghost Drivers have a proposenity to veer to their right.

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Azure: Austria’s 2015 vignette goes on sale at the end of November though the lime 2014 annual sticker is still valid until 31 January 2015 (14 months in all). The vignette is needed to drive on most motorways and expressways apart from those with pay-as-you-go tolls such as the A13 Brenner road. Prices have increased on average by 2.1%, to €8.70 for the ten day pass for cars, to €25.30 for two months and €84.40 for the year (€5, €12.70 and €33.60 for bikes). The revenues 100% finance state-owned roads operator ASFINAG. Compared to neighbouring countries the Austrian vignette is good value. A seven day pass in Slovenia costs €15 and €10 in Slovakia.

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roundup: THE ALPS: Alpine drives are likely to be interrupted for the next two weekends as cattle are brought down from high pastures (Viehabtrieb) warns ADAC. With combined herds sometimes thousands of animals strong, waits can be considerable as well as unpredictable. Drivers will also have to contend with the flocks of tourists who come to watch. Places certainly to avoid include Nesselwang tomorrow (16 September), Immenstadt and Tannheim on Saturday (20 September) and Zillertal on Saturday 27 September.

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Maserati’s 12,000km, 35 day Beijing-Modena tour reached Moscow on Saturday. By our calculations, they have another six days to cover the remaining 2,730km to Italy via Belarus, Poland, Czech Republic and Austria. The trip is part of Maserati’s centenary celebrations. Update: they actually arrived on Wednesday.

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Latest Crossing the Channel special offers: bikers heading for the Magny Cours Superbike festival in October can cross with MyFerryLink Dover-Calais from £35 each way. Book a short break with P&O Dover-Calais before this Thursday – 18 September – for travel before 17 October, and get a free £5 beauty voucher with three day returns at £48, or five day returns for £56 (offer code 5BTVCH).

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