Hi everyone,
I recently read that Radar Detectors are illegal in France. Like most new cars, my car comes with a fitted radar detector. So, what’s the regulation about that?
Thanks for your views.
John 
No, your car has a sat nav with a map that displays locations of speed known at the time of said map’s creation.
This isnt illegal.
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I’m not 100% sure but some SatNav tech, such as Tom Tom or the in-car Land Rover satnav do have a radar detector. This function needs to be switched off to comply with France regulations.
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Modern cars have a traffic detection radar, part of adaptive cruise control. Not the same as radar detectors which aren’t standard kit
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Thank goodness mine doesn’t.
I prefer to be the driver making the decisions.
Radar detectors are indeed illegal, however driving aid assistants are permitted… Which is why apps like Waze tell you that you’re approaching a “zone de contrôle” rather than specifying exactly where the cameras are.
This is a useful guide…
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Exactly. “Safety zone” alerts are allowed.
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AFAIK, they aren’t radar detectors as such. It’s just that the satnav knows where the speed detectors are, and can warn you if one is ahead.
The AA article quoted above says even those are illegal.
Illogical as you could just keep an eye out for the warning signs, but no one said the law had to make any sense.
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Btw does anyone know if you were flashed on a speed trap here, has the ability of France/EU to access driver details if you were in a UK car, been reinstated?
There is no longer any agreement between the EU and UK regarding transfer of vehicle owner details.
None of the websites dealing with speeding offences that I read has reported any cases from the EU since January 2021. Even before that, if details were obtained, there was no enforcement process to collect the penalty from a UK owner/driver as putting it through a UK court would result in the proceeds going to the UK Government not the foreign instigator. Of course, there was always the mythical "you’ll get caught if you go back " which was never substantiated.
GPS apps which show fixed speed cameras are illegal in France but as KarenLot wrote advance warnings of speed control zones are permitted.
I would love to see the introduction of non-defeatable devices which made irritating alerts whenever drivers followed too closely the vehicle in front at anything more than say 50kph.
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AFAIK there’s no process at the moment. Not that it would stop someone being fined if the gendarmes were directly involved.
I was flashed twice in 2021 with no apparent consequences, although nothing since to confirm the system is still good.
Our car has this. Makes my husband swear. 
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I wonder if I have been detected breaking speed limits during our long road trips these last three years. I try to keep within the limit, sometimes to the frustration of French drivers who know the location of speed checks. I may find out when we move to France.
Wasn’t there something in the news recently about UK drivers’ details being obtained illegally by an EU country…? Or perhaps it was EU drivers’ details being shared with TfL because they’d driven into the congestion zone or ULEZ…?
This IIRC.
So weird. I can sort of understand data not being exchanged if flashed by a machine, but there are also the odd in- person stops as well.
So it sounds like if it’s a police officer standing at the side of the road with a manual speed gun, or our local market town favourite : on market day there’s an officer standing a few meters into the one-way system looking for cars where people aren’t wearing seatbelts etc - then to issue a ticket he’s going to have to pull you over if you’re someone who’s visiting and in UK car?
Data protection, innit.
We had an agreement, an agreement which lapsed when we left the EU.
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there are reports in the Press, every day it seems, of motorists being pulled-over for general “checking”…
and/or because an infringement has already been noted…
doesn’t matter what nationality, as far as I am aware…