Youtube moments

[St.Jude]

On 07/06/2025 at 20:00, Remspoor said:

How to Save Money on Toll Roads in France

A lever little tool made by this guy to save on those horrible French tolls. He explains how this works and a link to the tool is in the description.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvvVoOzrodY

The vid will not embed.

 

SIr John Cosmos is looking out for me. I didn't notice this video when you posted it first, but I've watched it.

Put in my route for Sunday - annoyingly it's added 2 hours on to my time anyway because of LeMans (previously when I looked I would go right through it but obviously can't Sunday).

Route normally would cost €102. That site has given me an alternative which will me €30 instead.

Win.

[sheffcortinacentre]

On 07/06/2025 at 21:00, Remspoor said:

How to Save Money on Toll Roads in France

A lever little tool made by this guy to save on those horrible French tolls. He explains how this works and a link to the tool is in the description.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvvVoOzrodY

The vid will not embed.

 

Best way is don't go there.

[Remspoor]

13 minutes ago, sheffcortinacentre said:

Best way is don't go there.

Never truer word said by a Daily Mail reader

[Remspoor]

8 hours ago, St.Jude said:

SIr John Cosmos is looking out for me. I didn't notice this video when you posted it first, but I've watched it.

Put in my route for Sunday - annoyingly it's added 2 hours on to my time anyway because of LeMans (previously when I looked I would go right through it but obviously can't Sunday).

Route normally would cost €102. That site has given me an alternative which will me €30 instead.

Win.

Have a safe journey. I love LeMans not for the racing as 24 hours sports cars do not interest me. The historic part of town is just fantastic. Over the summer they have this fantastic light show too. https://www.sarthetourism.com/discover/cultural-heritage/the-night-of-the-chimeres/ But you maybe too early for this.

Another top tip if you use your phone whilst in Europe use the Essence & co app. Finds the cheapest fuel around use the map (Carte) not the listing.

Apple https://apps.apple.com/fr/app/essence-co/id459724569

Android it does not seem to be in the play store any longer. Some alternative links  https://apkpure.com/essence-co/com.ripplemotion.android.EssenceLite

https://essence.en.aptoide.com/app It covers France Spain and Portugal.

[St.Jude]

44 minutes ago, Remspoor said:

Have a safe journey. I love LeMans not for the racing as 24 hours sports cars do not interest me. The historic part of town is just fantastic. Over the summer they have this fantastic light show too. https://www.sarthetourism.com/discover/cultural-heritage/the-night-of-the-chimeres/ But you maybe too early for this.

Another top tip if you use your phone whilst in Europe use the Essence & co app. Finds the cheapest fuel around use the map (Carte) not the listing.

Apple https://apps.apple.com/fr/app/essence-co/id459724569

Android it does not seem to be in the play store any longer. Some alternative links  https://apkpure.com/essence-co/com.ripplemotion.android.EssenceLite

https://essence.en.aptoide.com/app It covers France Spain and Portugal.

Will check those out!

Im going to go in to Le Mans on the way back. It’s on the route for the grand tour of Europe when the Lada is done.

Want to check out the Museum in Toulouse because it has life size modules of Mir you can go in to.

[lesapandre]

On 12/06/2025 at 12:32, St.Jude said:

SIr John Cosmos is looking out for me. I didn't notice this video when you posted it first, but I've watched it.

Put in my route for Sunday - annoyingly it's added 2 hours on to my time anyway because of LeMans (previously when I looked I would go right through it but obviously can't Sunday).

Route normally would cost €102. That site has given me an alternative which will me €30 instead.

Win.

I've run this to take a look. It's a very complicated subject mixing and matching routes.

I tried a simple one which is Calais to Rouen.

The calculation is quite correct on the toll - which is the Boulogne-sur-Mer to Abbeville section on the A16 autoroute of 9.30 Euros. 

The A28 then continues this route after Abbeville all the way to Rouen - it's toll-free straight  through to Rouen - but the site shows two different and much slower routes which are incorrect as the motorway is free.

The A16 toll section can be avoided by either going more inland from Calais or using the coast road down to Abbeville via Le Touquet which is shown - then just picking up the A28. That way there is no toll Calais to Rouen at all.

The A28 is fast, safe and scenic - the other routes suggested are ok - but make no saving and would add an hour or two to the journey - especially if you get a lot of agricultural traffic this time of year.

So on that evidence I would not see this as reliable.

[Remspoor]

Rouen is the LEZ that is the most difficult to avoid travelling North/South in France and avoiding Paris ring road.

The Map.

Unless you obtain a Crit'Air sticker.

https://www.certificat-air.gouv.fr/

[St.Jude]

On 12/06/2025 at 23:44, lesapandre said:

I've run this to take a look. It's a very complicated subject mixing and matching routes.

I tried a simple one which is Calais to Rouen.

The calculation is quite correct on the toll - which is the Boulogne-sur-Mer to Abbeville section on the A16 autoroute of 9.30 Euros. 

The A28 then continues this route after Abbeville all the way to Rouen - it's toll-free straight  through to Rouen - but the site shows two different and much slower routes which are incorrect as the motorway is free.

The A16 toll section can be avoided by either going more inland from Calais or using the coast road down to Abbeville via Le Touquet which is shown - then just picking up the A28. That way there is no toll Calais to Rouen at all.

The A28 is fast, safe and scenic - the other routes suggested are ok - but make no saving and would add an hour or two to the journey - especially if you get a lot of agricultural traffic this time of year.

So on that evidence I would not see this as reliable.

So i used this today. And Waze.

The all, twice, sent me on a weird fucking loop. It stacks the waypoints in to Google maps, so when you reach it you have to hit “next stop”. Twice, the next point was basically either past a point I crossed, or just randomly entered.

One took me off the motorway to a town, to do a u turn at a round about to join the motorway where I left it. This wasn’t me getting it wrong, this was what it suggested. 

The next one basically had the point in a place where I should’ve turned left half a mile from where the last point was. I gave up on it.

Waze was as bad, but not in the same way.

Both of these got the tolls woefully wrong. The app said I’d incur €30 of tolls. I got to €15 before I stopped. Waze told me I’d incur €18 of tolls. Which correlated a bit to what the other app said.

I paid €32 in one toll, and another €25 on top of it.

The app said, in the Google Maps suggested route, I’d pay €100. I’m more or less there, as I fucking got papped by a camera.

Tomorrow I’m in Spain to Portugal. I intend to use Google maps and avoid tolls.

[Remspoor]

21 hours ago, St.Jude said:

So i used this today. And Waze.

The all, twice, sent me on a weird fucking loop. It stacks the waypoints in to Google maps, so when you reach it you have to hit “next stop”. Twice, the next point was basically either past a point I crossed, or just randomly entered.

One took me off the motorway to a town, to do a u turn at a round about to join the motorway where I left it. This wasn’t me getting it wrong, this was what it suggested. 

The next one basically had the point in a place where I should’ve turned left half a mile from where the last point was. I gave up on it.

Waze was as bad, but not in the same way.

Both of these got the tolls woefully wrong. The app said I’d incur €30 of tolls. I got to €15 before I stopped. Waze told me I’d incur €18 of tolls. Which correlated a bit to what the other app said.

I paid €32 in one toll, and another €25 on top of it.

The app said, in the Google Maps suggested route, I’d pay €100. I’m more or less there, as I fucking got papped by a camera.

Tomorrow I’m in Spain to Portugal. I intend to use Google maps and avoid tolls.

The YT video said do not use the avoid tolls . I use TomTom that is way more reliable than any Google product. It is not 100 perfect but it is 90% better than Google. Avoiding tolls in Portugal is harder than in Spain. Some of the tolls in Portugal do not have any booths. Just cameras.

Some cameras in France do not send letters. I hope that is one of them.

[Remspoor]

Uruguay: Why classic cars are everywhere

 

[St.Jude]

2 hours ago, Remspoor said:

The YT video said do not use the avoid tolls . I use TomTom that is way more reliable than any Google product. It is not 100 perfect but it is 90% better than Google. Avoiding tolls in Portugal is harder than in Spain. Some of the tolls in Portugal do not have any booths. Just cameras.

Some cameras in France do not send letters. I hope that is one of them.

I hadn’t set Avoid Tolls on the Google Maps - so it just took a shit on itself.

It was so silly. It was a camera in a bit of roadworks. It papped me and it was meant to be a 50k zone, which I thought I was doing. The fucking needle was covering the bottom of 60, so I was doing 56 or something.