Austria - speeding tickets

Just back from Kaprun. We drove down from Munich in a hire car and think we were flashed by a speed camera :evil: (in a village just before Kaprun)

Can anybody confirm whether the Austrian authorities will be able to send the fine to the hire company in Germany? Will the car hire company pay the fine and charge our credit card? Also, any idea of the level of fine? Not sure what speed we were doing (not mad fast) but possibly as much as 20kph over the limit (late at night with nobody about).

Oh dear :( Our household has experience of the Swiss way of managing foreigners speeding in hire cars. The registration of the vehicle identifies it as a hire car, so the company is contacted.
The hire car co. hand over your address and charge you an Admin fee for doing this.
You get a Fine by post sent to your home address, along with details of how to pay it.

You might be fortunate if the camera had run out of film )

Wanderer wrote:Just back from Kaprun. We drove down from Munich in a hire car and think we were flashed by a speed camera :evil: (in a village just before Kaprun)

Can anybody confirm whether the Austrian authorities will be able to send the fine to the hire company in Germany? Will the car hire company pay the fine and charge our credit card? Also, any idea of the level of fine? Not sure what speed we were doing (not mad fast) but possibly as much as 20kph over the limit (late at night with nobody about).

if the camera was live, you'll get the bill and as Bandit says, plus an additional admin fee from the hire company for working out it was you driving.
Basically, if you're in charge of a hire car and you incur any traffic penalties, you pay the bill.
In addition, Europe-wide the authorities are now sharing driver info and will pass endorsements and fines on.
Its not a case of getting away with it now if you avoid the Gendarmes unfortunately.

If the hire company do not have branches in Austria then you will probably get away with it.

if they do the hire company will probably charge your credit card for the fine

You could try telling your credit card company you lost your card and so all new charges will noot be honoured.

You won't get extradited but if you do get a fine and don't pay it then nothing will happen but you probably need to keep out of Austria for a few years and probably not use the hire company for a while

You will not get any endorsements

In short the only way you will have to pay it is if the care hire company do so on your behalf using the credit card details you gave them.

There are no powers to effectively collect speeding fines as speeding, not normally being an arrestable offence, can't be persued through the UK courts.

A number of third party companies try to collect speeding fines on behalf of foreign countries but they have no legal powers to enforce payment in the UK & rely on you paying up. They send a variety of official sounding threatening letters but a reply of "Oh how interesting" tends to make them go away when they realise they are not getting you to cough up.

There are plans afoot to change the law across Europe make speeding fines pan-european but they haven't gone ahead yet.

I was caught doing 5kph over the limit in Fieberbrunn. The Notification was routed from the local Austrian police through the Avis Munich office, and on to me with a 20 Euro fee for Avis. I arranged to pay the 40 Eu fine directly, as my son was conveniently travelling to the Salzburg lakes, and he paid in through a bank.

And the Morel to these stories are don't speed and be aware of speed limits of the countries you are visiting.

andymol2 wrote:In short the only way you will have to pay it is if the care hire company do so on your behalf using the credit card details you gave them.

There are no powers to effectively collect speeding fines as speeding, not normally being an arrestable offence, can't be persued through the UK courts.

.

F! We paid a speeding fine of €80 as we were advised to but in my difference I was not driving

Ian Wickham wrote:And the Morel to these stories are don't speed and be aware of speed limits of the countries you are visiting.

I so admire these saints who tell use not to speed, it is all to easy especially in a hire car to creep over the limit, well for me it is.