Using Libert-t French toll road transponder

As a regular tourer in France for over twenty years, I like many others have toyed with the different ways of paying autoroute tolls. Paying by cash in the early days at a manned booth was always a pleasant experience because of the polite and friendly staff, however more and more automated booths and the resulting hanging out of the passenger window trying to feed cash into the note slot, turned the experience into a bit of a chore. In recent years and certainly whilst towing a caravan I invariably chose to pay by card at automated booths but still with the problem of trying to get the car passenger window near to the card slot, knowing that there was almost a foot of additional caravan width coming up behind ready to scrape along the concrete buffers.

I always looked with envy at the Libert-t automated booths and on a number of occasions looked at the Sanef website to see whether it would be possible to sign up for a automatic transponder. A rather complicated website and not always trusted my French translation put me off this option till this year, when I found that a UK based option was now available using a UK Sanef website and utilising a direct debit facility that debits your bank account for toll charges with one conversion charge. The set up process was very simple although there are admin set up charges and a refundable 20 euro charge for the transponder which was sent easliy through the post and fixed to the car windscreen using a stick on mount. 

I used the system on my recent trip to France and it was absolutely fantastic. The real advantage being the ability to drive with caravan down the centre of the toll lane. The transponder beeps, the barrier lifts and you drive straight off with no fuss. My wife who also tows the van also pointed out that most of our arguments in the car usually were about how close either of us came to scraping the caravan side when negotiating toll booths. I have just received my first itemised bill with the debit for September usage to go out of my account at the start of November.

Well worth thinking about and probably worth the Caravan Club featuring in future club magazine.

Website is https://www.saneftolling.co.uk