Sat Navs in France

Ride-outs & Events Ride Reports
1

I’ve been reading a bit about the rules the French Government are implementing which affect visitors; The use of “Safety Camera” warnings on Sat Navs will be illegal and will get you an on the spot fine if caught.
Garmin have advice on their website regarding disabling the safety camera alerts but I have read advice on the the AA website which says “better still, remove them”.
Having just just gone through the agonising process of updating my Garmin Zumo 550 to the latest maps (anyone who’s done this knows what i’m talking about) and thought I’d have a poke about in the files to see if I could do anything about the safety camera alerts.
They are accessed from the main screen of a Garmin by pressing the spanner icon in the bottom right hand corner of the screen as “Proximty Points”, selecting this will show a tick box for “safety camera alerts” and any other POI files you may have loaded, you can un-tick this box to disable the alerts but they are still there. I wanted to explore the remove option.
Here’s what I did;
First connect Garmin unit to PC,

Go to my computer and double click the Garmin units drive, shows as an external drive, G on my pc,

A dialog box shows the files on the drive, double click on “garmin”, a new box shows all the top level files which include the mapping, voice etc.

Double click on the file POI (points of interest) the files within are the cyclops saftey camera alerts for various regions. If you’ve loaded any other POI files they will also show. I hadn’t so it was just the cyclops files.

Create a new file in “my documents” and call it something like “Safety Camera” or something similar so you’ll remember what it is.

Go back to the Garmin drive POI file and select all of the cyclops files, then cut and paste them to the file you created in “my documents”

Check the Garmin POI file to make sure the files are gone but the top level POI file is still there. This is important if you have any other POI files loaded and still want to use them.

Remove the Garmin from your pc and wait for the unit to start up

Press the spanner icon in the bottom right hand corner of the screen and scroll down, the “Proximty Points” box should no longer be there, IF you have other POI files loaded which you have not moved in the instructions above then the “Proximty Points” box will still be there, if this is the case click it and then you should see that the tick box option for “safety camera alerts” is no longer there but the other POI files are.

You will need to remove all the cyclops files not just the one for France because the Garmin unit will just show the tick box for “safety camera alerts” but this enables all the files in the unit and doesn’t say which countries are loaded and active. This does of course mean that there will be no alerts for the UK or any other country.

Job done. French plod will be happy because if he asks you to show him any camera alerts they are not there to find. I believe the plod are not allowed to search the sat nav themselves.

Once back from France you can replace the files into the Garmin POI file to restore your “Safety Camera Alerts”.

I take no responsibility for any problems or malfunctions caused by inept pc use, accidental deletion of files or any other problems. This has worked on my Garmin Zumo 550. Other Garmins may vary. TomToms I have no idea on. I contacted Garmin and they assure me that the above (done correctly) has no affect on the navigational operation of the Garmin.

2

:hehe:Vey useful bit of advice, thanks for the info, any idea how to do it on a tomtom rurban rider lol?

3

thanks for that, I’ll have to take holiday to do this but I guess it’s worth it :slight_smile:

4

If you use the TomTom alert system they have removed all alerts in France from their updates since the beginning of the year.
Decent third part alerts (like pocketgpsworld.com) provide French camera data as an option.

Note that the French legislation does not ban alerts for danger areas and it is likely that the French Government will do a deal with the various alert system providers (many of which are French companies) allowing them to rebrand their alerts. The law is part of a package that has proved extremely unpopular in France so expect some back tracking in an election year.

5

I had read that; Garmin also say that the latest updates will have compliant “safety area alerts” which will include things like level crossings and other dangers. That’s all fine but with my limited french speaking ability I’d rather explain to gun toting french gendarme that safety alerts are not installed than argue the point over which version they are.

My experience with the camera alerts was that they were so frequent in some areas that it sounded like a demented door bell going off every few minutes with a bluetooth head set so I turned them off anyway.

6

My Garmin speed detector was working well in France and Belgium at the weekend. I wont be turning that off. :smiley:

7

A 1500 euro fine might change your mind on that one - it’s cheaper to get caught speeding so long as the speed is not too high. Guys I know got slapped with a 800 euro fine for doing a mere 120mph on a peage and they had to get their bikes trailored back home.

8

I have heard this sort of story before, does it really happen? :smiley:

9

Lol u piss taker Mark !

10

I got a ban at 120 (200 kph) an hours ride from Colma, had to get towed to Germany, 750 euros on the spot fine (cash only accepted, no cards), than blasted back through Belgium and got the ferry back. I got a 30 day ban applicable to France only…

The old bill were about a mile away from the motorway in the mountains in a Subaru wrx, luckily they were cool and dropped me off to the local cash point than the tow truck in a local town.

The tow truck dude reckons he does up too 2/3 a day in summer. Not bad work at 230 euros a pop!

11

What ferry port did you come back from. :slight_smile:

12

It happens ok, see my post below, they are so busy it took 8 months for the local court papers to arrive in the uk, all in French, crapped it, thought the old bill kept the cash and the court summons was active! Turned out to be ok, just a delay due o the amount of tourists they catch!

Fecking typical though, I only had a 10 minute blast and got caught filtering, not sure what they do when it’s up @ 150 mph+! Could be lock up time!

13

My days of going to France at numbered. Might pass through on the way to Germany , thats it :smiley:

14

What happens if you don’t have €650!?? There’s no way I could pay that without using a card.

15

God knows, luckily my bro got out half the money and I took it out off my credit card, otherwise i’d of been stuffed.

The geezers English weren’t that good, when he shook his head and said big trouble, I new it was gonna be bad news…

Maybe they just keep the bike until u pay, either way weren’t nice blasting home through Germany, without a licence. They kept it for the 30 days.

I had to go on a drivers awareness course the following Friday, so got another copy from Dvla. ( only took 48 hours or so to arrive)

Must say, it has slowed me down…

16

I think it was the Hague, got there and got on the ferry at 1.30 ish(am), funny thing is though I got home before the rest of them on the euro tunnel, had a sleep on the ferry, took over 4 hours.

It had put me off doing a road trip, but up for it again now :slight_smile:

Would be good to have a van or toe bar / trailer for the motorway boring miles.

Colmar/ Munster/Alsache ( that region in general ) etc got the best winding roads I’ve been on and no old bill/speed traps etc been there twice and would go again.

If u go the way I came back, u get to blast through Germany (think I got upto 150 ish with all the luggage flapping about), but the bike starts to shake! So u might not get a speeding ticket, but it could of caused a little incident!

There’s no border in Belgium now, so didn’t realise I wasnt on the autoban till a petrol stop and chat with a local, so it old of got very messy as they lock u straight up over a certain speed!

An anglish trucker had told me my tail pack was

17

Germany has got to be the way forward, done the ring 4 years ago :slight_smile:

My bird got on the back the 3rd time round!

2nd lap I mowed the lawn, it changes so fast, car up my arse, than the fecker left me out to dry, but I got back on the black stuff!

Next time would like to hire a car, m3 (old shape) £1000 for 10 laps, split between two of you, happy days. You get a garage too!

Our group went back the following year ( we were on hols - wedding), geezer wrote off his brand new Clio cup £18k’s worth…

They paid out oddly enough as its not acutally a track, it’s a toll road!

18

I stayed in Colmar recently and never had any trouble. but then I tend to ride within the speed limits and behave when I am in a foreign land. :slight_smile:

19

Excellent so u know how cool the roads are out there. It was day 4 of our trip, I’d been behaving previously, we were making our way back, my bro shot passed me, I had 10 minutes of fun and the rest is history!

How do u rate those roads? To me they are my favourite.

20

I use a HTC Touch 2 with TomTom 7 European Mapping and all speed alerts. It also has Sprite Terminator installed - one text message sent to it wipes everything !!