DRIVING IN FRANCE: ECOTAX
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If you plan on driving a truck in France from next year, you need to know about the Ecotax — a road pricing system that means that every truck will need an on-board telematics device.
The environmental measure — properly called the 'taxe poids lourds' — was due to be introduced this July but was pushed back to October, then on 6 September it was announced that it will not start until January 2014. It affects any vehicle with a
gross weight over 3.5 tonnes, registered in France or abroad, and covers most of the major (non-toll) roads and motorways in France — around 10,500km of main roads and 5,000km of secondary routes.
Fees vary according to vehicle weight and emissions level: an artic will be charged from 13.1cents/km (for Euro-6) to 18.5cents/km (Euro-1 or older). You can pay as a 'subscriber' — being billed regularly via a service provider such as DKV,
Eurowag or AxxOs which supplies an on-board unit (OBU) — or as a 'non-subscriber'.
Occasional visitors to France will go for the latter option, in which you pay an up-front deposit for an OBU, which you can pick up or be sent directly by Ecomouv, the consortium in charge of the system.
It is reported that noncompliance will mean a fine of around €750, so either way you need to act.
And surely this is just the beginning: if the measure works, we can expect to see it in other countries very soon.