Toll Charges

[steve]

The Frogs got me some years ago for having a radar detector in my car. It was not in use and was out of sight because I knew that it was illegal to use one in France.The gendarmes advised me that it was also illegal to own or transport a radar detector.The equipment was confiscated and I was taken to an ATM and told to produce €700 or lose the car. I said I could only get €600 and they let me off with that. I was advised to write an appeal and the gendarme said that it was pretty good and I should get off with a warning. No surprise though that some months later I received notification that I had been fined €580 with €20 costs.

The gendarme was quite friendly and I asked him how he knew I had the detector as it was not plugged in and was locked in the glove box. He said that he had seen the mount on the windscreen when their car was parked by the side of the road but I said this seemed pretty amazing as I had gone by them at 80mph. He grinned and said that they had equipment in their car which detected
the radar units. How that worked I never figured out. Damned clever the French.

[smudger]

Travelled airport to CVO today by toll road, €3.50 coming off the Lagoa junction 6. Reckon my time was 40 mins in a Fiat Panda! Best time on EN125 I think was 50 mins but that was before the tolls were brought in.
Anyway............we're here, weather good, beers and wine in fridge and looking forward to a few friends and family joining us over the September weekend.

[American Pie]

Travelled airport to CVO today by toll road, €3.50 coming off the Lagoa junction 6. Reckon my time was 40 mins in a Fiat Panda! Best time on EN125 I think was 50 mins but that was before the tolls were brought in.
Anyway............we're here, weather good, beers and wine in fridge and looking forward to a few friends and family joining us over the September weekend.

Enjoy your holiday smudger. Me and the lady wife will be there on the 25th. Please arrange the sun to be out.

[smudger]

Travelled airport to CVO today by toll road, €3.50 coming off the Lagoa junction 6. Reckon my time was 40 mins in a Fiat Panda! Best time on EN125 I think was 50 mins but that was before the tolls were brought in.
Anyway............we're here, weather good, beers and wine in fridge and looking forward to a few friends and family joining us over the September weekend.

Enjoy your holiday smudger. Me and the lady wife will be there on the 25th. Please arrange the sun to be out.

American Pie, you'll know the sun is out!!! Been hectic time as had family and friends (7 of them) over for long weekend but now they have been packed off to airport so will enjoy the rest of the good weather!
Hope you enjoying your holiday, CVO still busy but not as hectic as August.

[TomUK]

I use Algarve Driver regularly. They charge €20 euros for the transponder (if you want it). It's €5 for use of the transponder and the other €15 is for you to use on the A22. No need to worry about whether to pay an extra €10 when you book just in case. Just pay the €20 and if you do exceed the €15 allowance they just charge it to the card you used for the booking (in increments of €5).
Never paid for car hire in cash, but I presume cash customers pay any extra charge in cash when returning the car.
Last May I exceeded the €15 allowance by €4.20 and they debited my card by €5. Earlier this month I exceeded the €15 allowance by €9.30 and my card was debited €10 a week later.
What struck me was how quiet the motorway still is. Doesn't seem to have made the N125 much quieter. Do you folks who live out there have any information about how successful the toll system is financially? Have any figures been published regarding the income achieved? Are they reaching their projected targets?

[smudger]

Tom UK, I seem to recall thePortugal News running a story 6 months after tolls introduced saying income was well below predictions, the service stations on the motorway were complaining bitterly about their losses and that traffic on the EN125 had more than doubled. Then a few months back, same paper reported that toll road was paying for itself because more people were using it.
For the first time ever, I paid the €20 toAlgarve Driver (also pay for hire in cash), and they will charge any excess to my credit card. Reason for using toll was frequent trip to airport to collect and drop off visitors.
Probably use in future but one concern is the speed of motorbikes, but that not isolated to here!!
Oh well another sunny day in CVO, off to pool to cool down.

[SAM SPARKLE]

The French DO however have the technology, and stories of people being "frog marched" to ATMs there, are legion!

Would that be the French Foreign Legion

[sam]

Used Lagorent via Economy Car Hire. They only charge credit card if you use the tolls. If you do they charge credit card 5 euros plus cost of tolls a couple of days later. I would rarely use 20 euros worth so good system for me. Usually use the 125, but at 5am this morning it was misty so changed to the motorway. Even at that time of day it was busier on the 125 than the A22.

[Sheila]

Used Lagorent via Economy Car Hire. They only charge credit card if you use the tolls. If you do they charge credit card 5 euros plus cost of tolls a couple of days later. I would rarely use 20 euros worth so good system for me. Usually use the 125, but at 5am this morning it was misty so changed to the motorway. Even at that time of day it was busier on the 125 than the A22.

This sounds a better system than YOR.
We used an extra 6.65 this time so had to pay an extra 10 euros. This seems a bit excessive, especially as we usually use only 8.70 therefore always giving YOR/ALGARVE Driver an extra 6.30 every trip.
They also somehow knew how much over we were immediately we returned the car and asked for cash so they had no credit card fee to pay.
Does anyone know if there is a counter fitted in the cars now. We didn't notice but we didn't really look as were not expecting one.

[TomUK]

By 'counter', I presume you mean the transponder. This should make an audible bleep as you pass under the toll gantry to notify you that your car had been charged a toll automatically. It is usually fitted to the top of the windscreen, behind the rear view mirror. The rental company can access the readings from the transponder to see what charge you have clocked up.