Anyone know if the law in France actually changed last September requiring "approved" hi vis vests for all motorcylists?

How about Andora, Spain and Portugal? Any similar reqt's I should be aware of?

 

As far as I know a stranded rider needs to wear a high vis vest in France, Spain and Italy

 

As of Jan. 1-2013 in France a motorcyclist riding a > 125 cc bike has to wear high vis clothing.
The reflective part has to be 150 cm2;fine will be Euro 68!

 

Thanks for the update and information!!! This is the first time that I have heard this. Guess I will keep my hi-vis vest in my tour pak for those trips across the border!

 

Per July 1st you also need to have a mobile breath analyzers with you. Checks starts per July, they will start to give fines per October / November.

 

Concerning the breath analyser, only French products are allowed but they are all sold out. And the other thing is that they can't stand a temperature higher than 40 degreese Celsius.

And I am never gonna wear a vest. I've always got 11€ in my pocket that is the fine one has to pay here in France. Up to now I have never been stopped for not wearing the vest.

In total, it will take a while until these items will be really implimented into the French system.

 

Hello,

Some fresh news from France !

The law about high vis has been cancelled about two weeks ago (more exactly it will never come into effect).

We hope it will be the same with the breath analysers because it's completely ridiculous. For the moment you are supposed to have one of these things in your car or on your bike (and in fact you need to have 2 because when you use one, you need a second one to show to the police in case of control !).

But until the 1st of march there will be no penalty if you don't have them.

Let's wait and hope !

 

Thanks for the update, Yves.

Edit Dec. 29-2012:

Here's a link to some more background info

 

New update !

French government decided today it is not necessary any more to have a breath analyzer in the car or on the bike. The measure is postponed because of the lack of reliability of the sold equipments...

 

Thanks for the update!