BOMB THE BAN

A UK ban means just that, so the irony was not lost on me when, a decade or so ago, I drove a Prost-peugeot V12 F1 car around a French racetrack whilst stymied by a driving ban in Blighty. I managed six laps before spinning off, but nevertheless there was a powerful sense of yah-boo-sucks to the banners. Conversely, a few years later, Les Flics confiscated my licence after cameratargeting me as I motored at full speed in a Boxster 987 along a brand-new stretch of Autoroute, leapfrogging the Tour Auto retinue which my colleague and I were covering. A month’s disqualification in France was not a great imposition, and neither, as it happened, was the €125 euro fine (they’d said at first it would be €750), except that my colleague’s licence was at that precise moment in the custody of the Yorkshire constabulary ( speeding on the A1 in a Viper Green 997 GT3 RS. Ed), causing some consternation, and only an insurance document naming us allowed them to release us – and the Boxster – with the proviso that he drove from then onwards. When I got my first Porsche, a 3.2 Carrera, it wasn’t long before I also bought a Beltronics radar detector, based on the firm conviction that I would be going appreciably faster than before. Actually, it wasn’t that, it was just that I could suddenly afford one, along with the car. Anyway, mes cher amis Les Flics confiscated that, too, as they are – or certainly were – illegal to own, let alone operate, in La Belle France. Having been diligently concealing the device beneath the passenger seat whenever I passed through towns and villages, it was spotted by a pair of motorbike cops loitering at an Autoroute payage, and after much argybargy I was made to pay 500 Francs (in those pre-euro times), and they kept the detector, too. Coming right up to date, my last couple of offences – as well as a speeding citation in New Zealand (see 911&PW Kiwi Capers) driving a 997 C4S – prompted me to fork out for another detector, this time a discrete Genevo One M, which appears to recognise motorway and roadside cameras, though as yet it hasn’t spotted a mobile camera van or jam sandwich lying in wait for the unwary speeder. So, as yet, it doesn’t seem to do anything more than the good old Tomtom did, but one day we shall find out, for sure.