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M B B

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M B B

Postby MartinF » 16 Sep 2021, 18:17

More bl**dy bureaucracy

After hesitating for some time, my wife and I have decided to go to France to see our daughter and her family. It’s her 50th birthday next week so we thought we ought to make the effort despite all the paraphernalia about COVID precautions.

We haven’t been over to France for nearly 2 years and, in the meantime, there has been Brexit. That means that our Euro number plates are no longer valid. So it’s time to sort out a GB plate. Except that, at the end of next week, it’s all change. Apparently, Boris and co think that GB plates are not inclusive enough for NI so we will need a UK plate instead! So, what to do? Attach a GB plate and hope that a gendarme doesn’t get stroppy at the time we come back, attach a UK plate (if anyone has them) and hope that a gendarme doesn’t get stroppy when we arrive or fix a GB one and replace it next week?

As it happens, and I’m tempting fate here, whenever we’ve been pulled over by a gendarme in the past, they only want to see our permets de conduire and our daughter reckons that they only stop us so that they can practice their English.
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Re: M B B

Postby RogerS » 16 Sep 2021, 18:21

Brexit...the gift that keeps on giving !


Stick on all three ? :eusa-whistle:
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Re: M B B

Postby Andyp » 16 Sep 2021, 18:35

Just bung a GB sticker on the car you will be fine. Police or gendarmes, unless you are doing something really stupid, will leave you alone. In my experience at routine random spot checks as soon as I speak english they lose interest. I have been stopped 3 times in 14 years and never even got to show my licence never mind all the other stuff we are supposed to carry.
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Re: M B B

Postby AJB Temple » 16 Sep 2021, 18:46

I on the other hand was stopped three times on one memorable trip down to the south of France. In one of these fun stops, Gordon Ramsay was already sitting in the police van and Tana and my wife had a chat. Inexplicably I had two driving licences so all was well.

However, I was not stopped for absence of a GB sticker. They would have been lucky to see it flash past....
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Re: M B B

Postby Rezi » 16 Sep 2021, 19:35

As someone who lives abroad the latest advice from our expat group if you have a UK plate car is to put a UK sticker on and you will be compliant.
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Re: M B B

Postby Steve Maskery » 16 Sep 2021, 19:35

AJB Temple wrote:I on the other hand was stopped three times on one memorable trip down to the south of France. In one of these fun stops, Gordon Ramsay was already sitting in the police van and Tana and my wife had a chat. Inexplicably I had two driving licences so all was well.

However, I was not stopped for absence of a GB sticker. They would have been lucky to see it flash past....


I sooooo hope that that is true.

My own encounter with legal issues in Europe was merely being locked up in a room with a Mancunian trying to give himself up as he was wanted for murder.

Yes really
S
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Re: M B B

Postby RogerS » 16 Sep 2021, 21:00

AJB Temple wrote:I on the other hand was stopped three times on one memorable trip down to the south of France. In one of these fun stops, Gordon Ramsay was already sitting in the police van and Tana and my wife had a chat. Inexplicably I had two driving licences so all was well.

However, I was not stopped for absence of a GB sticker. They would have been lucky to see it flash past....


Beaujolais run ? :eusa-whistle:
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Re: M B B

Postby RogerS » 16 Sep 2021, 21:01

Steve Maskery wrote:
AJB Temple wrote:I on the other hand was stopped three times on one memorable trip down to the south of France. In one of these fun stops, Gordon Ramsay was already sitting in the police van and Tana and my wife had a chat. Inexplicably I had two driving licences so all was well.

However, I was not stopped for absence of a GB sticker. They would have been lucky to see it flash past....


I sooooo hope that that is true.

My own encounter with legal issues in Europe was merely being locked up in a room with a Mancunian trying to give himself up as he was wanted for murder.

Yes really
S



Tsk...the company you keep :eusa-hand: :D

C'mon...we all want to know why you were really locked up ???
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Re: M B B

Postby Steve Maskery » 16 Sep 2021, 22:53

OK. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin.

Once upon a time I decided to make a DVD. My mate Bob came over and worked the camera for me. He came pretty much every Friday for close to a year. He got paid in Dinner. I offered to take him on holiday as a Thank You and so we ended up in Barcelona.

I got mugged. Bag, money, contact lens stuff and passport.
Passport.

There is no Embassy in Barcelona, but there is a British High Commission. So off we went to get an emergency replacement passport to get back to Blighty.

It's a secure building, you can't just walk in. You get buzzed in, and all the staff are the other side of a bullet-proof glass screen. Like a bank on steroids. Once in, the door locks behind you.

There was one other chap there. Nice bloke. We got chatting. He's trying to get a ticket back to Manchester. He has no money. He's on the run. Was a witness to one murder in Chicago and iswanted by the police in Manchester for the murder of another gangster.

Nice chap, really.

So eventually, after handing over a fortune for a piece of paper which will allow me to go home, I am let out of this prison. No idea what happened to the nice-chap-cum-murderer.
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Re: M B B

Postby Doug » 17 Sep 2021, 06:58

Steve Maskery wrote:
My own encounter with legal issues in Europe was merely being locked up in a room with a Mancunian trying to give himself up as he was wanted for murder.

Yes really
S


So you did have some experience that stood you in good stead for moving to Kirkby, ;)
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Re: M B B

Postby Doug » 17 Sep 2021, 07:03

Steve Maskery wrote:OK. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin.

Once upon a time I decided to make a DVD. My mate Bob came over and worked the camera for me. He came pretty much every Friday for close to a year. He got paid in Dinner. I offered to take him on holiday as a Thank You and so we ended up in Barcelona.

I got mugged. Bag, money, contact lens stuff and passport.
Passport.

There is no Embassy in Barcelona, but there is a British High Commission. So off we went to get an emergency replacement passport to get back to Blighty.

It's a secure building, you can't just walk in. You get buzzed in, and all the staff are the other side of a bullet-proof glass screen. Like a bank on steroids. Once in, the door locks behind you.

There was one other chap there. Nice bloke. We got chatting. He's trying to get a ticket back to Manchester. He has no money. He's on the run. Was a witness to one murder in Chicago and iswanted by the police in Manchester for the murder of another gangster.

Nice chap, really.

So eventually, after handing over a fortune for a piece of paper which will allow me to go home, I am let out of this prison. No idea what happened to the nice-chap-cum-murderer.


I’d not read this when I posted above, sounds like you were well qualified as well as having experience for the move :shock: sorry Steve :)
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Re: M B B

Postby Just4fun » 17 Sep 2021, 07:36

Some years ago the governor gave me a tour of Helsinki prison. He mentioned that they had 4 foreign (ie non-Finnish) prisoners, and all 4 were from Liverpool. Make of that what you will.

Heading back vaguely in the direction of the topic, my wife was once pulled in at a general roadside check here in Finland. A policewoman asked for the car papers then went to the front of the car to look at the number plate. Returned, handed back the car papers, and sent my wife on her way. No mention at all of the fact that not only did the number on the plate not match the papers, but the papers were for a Finnish registration and the number plate was Swedish. One wonders what would have been worthy of comment.
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Re: M B B

Postby RogerS » 17 Sep 2021, 08:01

Just4fun wrote:Some years ago the governor gave me a tour of Helsinki prison. He mentioned that they had 4 foreign (ie non-Finnish) prisoners, and all 4 were from Liverpool. Make of that what you will.

Heading back vaguely in the direction of the topic, my wife was once pulled in at a general roadside check here in Finland. A policewoman asked for the car papers then went to the front of the car to look at the number plate. Returned, handed back the car papers, and sent my wife on her way. No mention at all of the fact that not only did the number on the plate not match the papers, but the papers were for a Finnish registration and the number plate was Swedish. One wonders what would have been worthy of comment.



Moose in the backseat ? :lol:
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Re: M B B

Postby Lons » 17 Sep 2021, 09:34

Just stick something like this https://www.amazon.co.uk/Union-badge-RE ... 0176&psc=1 on your number plates, there are loads available if you google number plate stickers.

A friend has just come back from 2 months in France Spain and Portugal in his Motorhome and that's what he stuck over the EU bit on the side of his plates, he had no issues though he also gad an additional GB sticker on the back of the van.
I have a degree in faffing about (It must be true, my wife says so)
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Re: M B B

Postby MartinF » 26 Oct 2021, 12:56

By way of a belated update.

I finally succumbed and put on a GB sticker that I had had lurking in the glovebox for the last 15 years. In the services at Dover, and on the ferry, I looked for a UK plate - no joy. So I asked at the Information Desk on the ferry whether they had any. They hadn't heard of the new UK plate.

On arrival back at Calais, I looked to see what plates were on various cars and motorhomes. One had a UK plate. Of the rest, half, like me, had a GB plate. The rest had nothing. In all the years that I've driven in France, Germany and the like, despite carrying all the requisite documents, all I've ever been asked for is my driving licence and I suspect most gendamres couldn't care less about nationality plates. After all, it's pretty obvious where the car is registered just from the style of the number plate.

Someone suggested the use of a sticker over the EU part of my existing number plate. I mentioned this to my son-in-law who lives there and he said that the use of stickers was prohibited in France
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Re: M B B

Postby Lurker » 26 Oct 2021, 13:28

My son has just returned from Ireland.
Holyhead to Dublin.

He was careful to have no food in the vehicle on the outward journey.
He said that other than the ferry company checking his tickets,nobody asked for anything in either direction.
He drives a black van and could have been carrying hundreds of boxes full of sausages :o :D :D
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