A word to the wise for those like me who are still UK-based - be careful where on the windscreen you put your Crit’air sticker!
When I first got mine I put it on the lower right-hand corner of the windscreen, as advised on various websites.
Then I got my car MOT’d in the UK - and the garage had removed my sticker - destroying it in the process!
Apparently it is an automatic MOT fail if you have anything obscuring the “swept area” of the windscreen on UK cars - and these days most windscreen wipers go right into the corner on the right hand side, so there is no room to put a sticker without it being behind the “swept area”.
It’s a bit silly because in the bottom right corner of your windscreen all you can see is the wing of your car, but there it is - “it’s the LAW!”
So I now have mine in the top left corner behind the unswept bit, and hopefully no gendarme is going to object to that!
Get one of those clear adhesive pockets like the ones used for CT/Insurance the correct size for the CritAir sticker and place it where the French want it.
Slide new CritAir sticker into pocket.
Remove CritAir sticker from pocket before next MoT, so that even if the idiots remove the pocket, you don’t have to apply for a new CritAir sticker.
I hope you told the garage off and demanded the cost of a new CritAir sticker from them?
There is a specific instruction that Crit’Air stickers must be STUCK to the lower right hand corner of the screen.
My Crit’Air and German Umwelt stickers are one above the other in the lower right hand corner of the screen and have passed several MoTs.
The MoT manual states:
you should only fail the windscreen if the view is significantly affected. If only the driver’s view of the sky or the bonnet is affected, it should not be rejected. The following are only considered a defect if they seriously restrict the driver’s view:
official stickers, such as parking and disabled permits"
I’m wondering if the specific placement of the Crit’Air sticker is to enable it to be scanned from a distance, by equipment specifically set up for that task… will it be zapped/scanned if on the other side of the car???
That is correct, @Stella . The cameras scan each vehicle and the system is trained to look for the crit’air sticker in the lower right of the windscreen. Put it anywhere else and it won’t be recognised, according to the traffic police I spoke to a couple of weeks ago.
Thanks for the info folks - that’s somewhat annoying as my garage has removed or tried to remove the sticker on two occasions when I had it at lower right on my windscreen.
OK I’ve done a bit more Googling and it does seem that my garage were being over-zealous in removing my Crit’Air sticker - I found this information"
The MOT test will check that items placed in or stuck to the windscreen do not seriously obscure the vision of the driver. The windscreen is divided into Zones To better define what is permissible: Zone A is a vertical area 290mm wide, centred on the steering wheel and contained within the swept area of the windscreen (this area is 350mm wide on vehicles over 3.5 tonnes) and Zone B is the remainder of the swept area of the windscreen.
So that suggests that it’s fine to have the sticker in the extreme lower right corner of the windscreen, as long as it is more than 145mm from the centre line of the steering wheel.
I will have a word with my garage bloke next time I see him!!
However… the Gov.UK website also says that any stickers in Zone B (the swept area) “shall not encroach more than 40mm” into Zone B. Which is tricky since a Crit’Air sticker is about 68mm across, and on my car at least the swept area goes almsot to the edge of the windscreen… I might just be able to squeeze it in I think.
Otherwise @NotALot 's suggestion of a see-through holder seems like the best answer.
Change your garage, the person is an a hole.
Had similar a few years back where my beam benders prevent dazxling in France by producing a flat beam pattern which is Not illegal in the UK. Gave the guy who ripped them off the bollicking of his life and demanded the money for the beam benders (which I didnt get) but he wouldnt dare have failed it or I would report him to VOSA.
Maximum a sticker can impede into the swept area (zone B ) is 40mm so about half of your crit air sticker in the path of the wiper area maximum. Under the wiper path there should be a gap.
But I can’t do it until I retire - thanks to the B-word setting up a photography business in France is not as easy as it once was. Also probably not worth doing just for a few years pre-retirement.
Well you’d think not, but it does seem you’ve got a condensation problem. Our car’s a much smaller BMW X1 and we live right alongside the Lot, which can be very humid, but we’ve neverhad the condensation problem you describe .
Have you ever slept in a confined space say its minus 5 degrees out side and you have the campervan heating on at plus 16 degrees the windows after 8 hours mist up after several months after wiping the internal screen the paper wipes off
