For those people not familiar with the motorway system in France, they are excellent, with facilities and rest areas spaced at regular intervals along the road. The motorways are also owned and managed by different companies, and they extract huge amounts of money from you, for the pleasure of using their roads.
And now anyone can obtain a badge as it is no longer just for the privileged few. The badge gives you access to the fast lanes, the monitor registers as you pass through and debits the toll charge on your credit card. The badge can be used on all motorways, regardless of which company it was purchased from. Simple!
The first task in the process is to organise the purchase of the badge. The web pages describe how wonderful they are, and show pictures of cars passing through the telepeage booths easily and without delay. The company will even post a badge to a customer anywhere in the world so that they can use it on their next visit to France. Easy? No! Confusing and frustrating? Yes!
I wasted hours trying to organise a badge online. The first company would only accept French debit cards and the second company would not accept our post code. I tried to ring and was offered multiple choices (in French of course) which I could not understand so could not talk to anyone. Luckily I did not try the third company, Hans (in Holland) tried that one without success.
So I thought I would stop at the first peage and organise a badge in person. And luck was in, on the first motorway south of Nancy. There were representatives from Liber-t sitting in front of the service station organising badges. They even had English pamphlets. So within half an hour we left with a badge, financial arrangements sorted out and passwords organised for the web site. Fantastic! Aaron was so impressed he organised a badge for himself too. My visions of bypassing all the traffic jams at the tolls had become a reality. Dream on, they say!
Of course it was not meant to be, for us anyway. Aaron's worked beautifully of course. At the first toll the barrier would not move, so we reversed back, annoying the motorist behind us, took the badge off its mount and waved it around, behind the windscreen. It still did not work, so we had to reverse back again and then drive through another booth, behind a motorist. Of course we did not have a ticket. So when it came to the end of that toll road, we had no ticket and the badge still would not work. This time we had to reverse back and drive along the line of toll booths, in heavy traffic and accompanied by horns blaring and people shouting at us, to where there was a person in a booth. We had no ticket so got told off. We tried to explain, very badly, while impatient drivers tooted behind us. We nearly had an argument! We were very hot and bothered!
Meanwhile Aaron breezed through both toll booths and had to wait on the other side for us to catch up, which was the situation for the remainder of the trip down and the trip back.
We tried to explain our woes about the badge to the representative at one of the offices on the motorway south of Lyon. She was very sympathetic but could offer no solution because their company did not issue to the badge. The French shrug, accompanied the advice that we will have to go back to a Liber-t office. And all the Liber-t offices were closed when we returned home two weeks later. Fed up? Yes!
And then when I returned to Holland, my password would not work! Naturally Aaron's password worked. Brilliant for him!
So Aaron has very kindly lent us his badge for our next trip down to the south of France. I have promised that I will give him the money for the tolls that we have accrued on his credit card. This could be a cheap trip down there, if I forget to pay him! But I won't Aaron. Promise!
But just to finish off, it would appear that there may be nothing wrong with the badge after all but could, in fact, be the type of windscreen on the Citroen. I think it is blocking the signals. I found this out at the toll booths in Dartford. We have just put a new Dart badge on the Citroen, which allows us to use the tolls for the tunnel and bridge at a greatly reduced price (Dartford residents). The only way I could get the badge to work was to hold it up outside the window.
Of course the windscreen theory will be tested at the first peage in France. I will hold our badge out of the window, and Donna will hold Aaron's badge in readiness, in case the first badge does not work.
We will wait and see, and visit the first Liber-t office we find, regardless of whether the badge works or not. I just hope their English is better than my French. I have lots of questions to ask.
I want a badge. One that works!
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