It doesn’t take a lot of math to figure out that speeding 5 km/h in town has little to do with going over 90 km/h on the road or 130 km/h on the highway. In the last two cases, it is an understandable technical tolerance given a more peaceful environment, which is not the case in the city, where dangers arise from everywhere. We already know the difficulty of observing a limit pace which consists of watching your speedometer rather than the street or the road. However, the risks are anticipated by scanning the environment, beyond the dashboard. A truism.
The anticipated announcement by the Minister of the Interior does not, at this stage, go into the details of a measure which will not apply before January 1, 2024. It is based on an evidence recalled by Gérald Darmanin himself. same: it is a question of “introducing an administrative indulgence with regard to these shortcomings which are more a matter of lack of attention than of the deliberate desire to free oneself from the rule”, considers the Minister of the Interior.
We would like as much discernment on his part for the 80 km / h, now become a minority on the territory, an increasing number of departments having returned for all or part of their networks to 90 km / h. Precisely, the departments very well placed to gauge the risk in town or in the countryside know how to discern the paces to recommend.
And 5 km/h reported at 50 in the city is 10% tolerance where it only represents 5.56% at 90 km/h and 3.85% at 130. So there is with this measurement, if it remained unilateral, more than a distortion according to the route taken. The problem is that there is a reverse logic reasoning, more permissive in the city than in the countryside. At a time when urban rodeos are making headlines with individuals who respect nothing and with authorities overwhelmed by the phenomenon, the signal given to other reasonable users is probably not the finest pedagogy.
The tolerance is nevertheless useful in order not to mix small and medium speeding tickets. “Until now, speeding 1 km/h or 19 km/h above the authorized speed limit was penalized in the same way outside urban areas: 68 euros and 1 point. Thus, the involuntary fault of 1 km / h was considered as serious as a speeding of 19 km / h, recalls Pierre Chasseray, general delegate of the association 40 Million motorists. But, in fact, exceeding 5 km / h in the city remains more serious than the same on the road or highway.
The recommendation would be to maintain the 50 km/h in town so that motorized users stay well below this limit. A common sense measure when the mayors already modulate the speed according to the districts, more often downwards than upwards. On the other hand, the tolerance of minor speeding at other speeds corresponds well to what the Minister of the Interior wants to obtain for what some qualify as a communication mission.
More shocking is the maintenance announced by Gérald Darmanin of the fines incurred for these minor speeding offenses, which represent 58% of the fines. A windfall which public finances do not intend to deprive themselves of, now in passing a form of sanction likely to remind us that it is always a speeding ticket, even a small one.
Automobile associations naively claim their removal, with valid arguments. “We have calculated, says Nathalie Troussard, of the Automobile Defense League, that each year, at a minimum, these fines bring in 400 million euros to the State. By maintaining the fine, it confirms that it is aiming for profitability, not safety. »
An embarrassing fact, confirmed by the Court of Auditors, which looked into the planned allocation for the benefit of road safety of the sums resulting from the fines. She concluded her report as follows: “It is difficult to make the link between the number of road deaths, a key indicator of the ‘safety’ mission, and the use of funds from the Trust Account. The organization was unable to trace the destination of the hundreds of millions of euros taken from the pockets of drivers, most likely allocated to other missions, far removed from road safety.